


Ikigai

by palmsandsunshine



Series: Ikigai verse [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Choreographer Nathan Chen, Crying, Heavy Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Lots of Crying, Lots of time skips, M/M, Nathan is no longer quad king oof, Olympics, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Winter Olympics, because we need more zuzuthan, but not really, fluff and feelings, like a lot, soft boyfriends, that should be a tag, why is that not a tag, zuzuthan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-07-30 03:47:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20090764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palmsandsunshine/pseuds/palmsandsunshine
Summary: Shoma cut Nathan off with a peal of laughter, brushing a stray curl out of his eyes as he spoke. “Anata wa kakusu koto ga dekimasen! I am not blind, Nathan-kun. You love two things in this world. Skating andHanyu Yuzuru-san.”Later on that night, Nathan realized he never denied Shoma’s statement.in which Nathan Chen, retired figure skater and up-and-coming choreographer, and Yuzuru Hanyu, two-time Olympic gold medalist, are a lot closer than most people think they are





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have tried to keep all the dates lined up, with reality (all the ice shows and the skaters participating in them are real, you can check the dates for yourself if you want), but some I will intentionally move around. For example, for the sake of this story, I have moved the 2019 World Figure Skating Championships from March 18th-March 24th to April 29th-May 5 (Nathan's Birthday!!), and then shifting all the tour dates to compensate for it. Therefore, the 2018-2019 season has been extended until May and AFTER World Team Trophy. It doesn't really make sense but I kind of needed it to work out this way (oops).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t need to listen to everyone, Nathan-kun,” Yuzuru murmured as they were doing crossovers, just loud enough for Nathan to hear over the scrape of their blades over the ice. “Just because they tell you you can’t do it doesn’t mean they’re right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eah: don’t do it  
me: b-but zuzuthan  
eah, desperately editing my pacrim fic: you’re 20k words into your pacific rim fic, don’t give up now—  
me, sobbing and watching zuzuthan hug at the gpf: zuZuTHAn bETch
> 
> ^true story
> 
> Anyways...  
Japanese translations are at the end in the notes!

> “A man's spirit is free, but his pride binds him with chains of suffocation in a prison of his own insecurities.”
> 
> — Jeremy Aldana

* * *

“Bring that arm up higher during the hydroblade. And bend it a little more. Give me a gentle curve, not a straight line.”

“You told me to keep my arm _perfectly_ straight earlier.”

“Well, I’m changing it now. _Go_. Do it again.”

With an exasperated chuckle, Yuzuru pushed off the boards and back to the center of the ice. He dipped into the hydroblade after gaining a little bit of speed and raised his arm just…

_Perfect_, Nathan thought, _that looks perfect_. He said such out loud.

He didn’t mention the platinum glow around Yuzuru’s profile, or the way the gentle blush on his cheeks made him look a touch younger than his twenty-four years. It suddenly hit Nathan that while he himself was only nineteen and retired from competitive skating, Yuzuru still had a lot of fight left in him. _How unfair_. Nathan smushed the thought and didn’t let the jealousy simmer.

“_I know_,” Yuzuru simply said with a cheeky smile and skated off before Nathan could land a hard hit to his shoulders.

Nathan could’ve skated after him—after all, he did have his skates on in case he wanted to demonstrate a step sequence to Yuzuru—but he didn’t feel like leaving his self-proclaimed leaning spot against the boards. Instead, he called out his frustrations as Yuzuru dodged past Jason and Junhwan over to the opposite side of the rink, giggling the whole way there. Just like he used to during downtime when choreographers were working with other skaters and Nathan and Yuzuru were both free.

“Stop running into other people, Yuzu! With those elbows of yours, you’ll give someone a concussion!” Nathan exclaimed, sounding a lot like Brian when Nathan would chase Yuzuru around the rink haphazardly.

“_Damare yo_—” Yuzuru tried to quip, but it was lost in the yelp he let out after swerving to avoid Jason’s step sequence.

“_Kimi wa mondaidesu_.” Nathan shot back even against the many protests of Yuzuru for ‘_abusing my Japanese lessons_!’. After all, it was Yuzuru's fault for only teaching him Japanese insults.

Jason, with his basic understanding of the Japanese language, burst out laughing when he caught the basic meaning of their short-lived Japanese conversation. Junhwan looked lost but still amused at their antics.

“Hey, Nathan!” Jason called out from where he was working personally with Tracy, a pleased grin on his face. “Tell your muse to stop crashing into me while I’m warming up!”

(Nathan didn’t think Yuzuru knew what ‘muse’ meant but by the blush rapidly rising on Yuzuru’s cheeks, he knew Yuzuru understood perfectly.)

He pushed off the boards and skated to the center of the ice. He loved the way his freshly-sharpened blades felt gliding across the rink. It was like returning home after a long day and finally being able to take off your shoes; the same comforting feeling underneath your soles. Even after a year away from competitive skating, the ice still felt like home.

“Yuzu-kun, do your twizzles and step sequence again. Hurry up, I only have three days in Canada and we already burned through two because you refuse to practice.”

“Oh, come on, give me a break!”

“My flight leaves tomorrow night, we literally have no time for breaks!”

Yuzuru skated closer, a whine bubbling from his throat. “Can’t you stay a little longer? What happened to before, when all we would do for a week was choreograph dumb pieces together?”

“That was before I left competitive skating. We would only do that during summer training camps or during ice shows. And I don’t have time. You’re not my only client, you know. A bunch of producers are asking me to choreograph ice shows for them all over the world. Brian and Raf are all too happy to send me off to random corners of the world.”

“I miss when I didn’t have to share you with all the skaters.”

“I miss when I didn’t have to share you with the entire world,” Nathan countered, swatting away Yuzuru’s wandering hands. “Go. Practice. Your arms during the twizzles are sloppy and you’re not getting enough speed into the triple axel.”

“You’re mean.”

“Realistic is the word you’re looking for.”

“If you need a place to stay longer, you can sleep in my guest room.” Nathan rolled his eyes and followed Yuzuru farther out onto the ice, the two marking out the step sequence together. Junior skaters gave them a wide berth and allowed the two to take priority over the ice.

“First of all, that pull-out couch is the most uncomfortable thing in the world. Second, I can’t stay any longer, you know that. I’m helping out Shoma with a section in his new short program and I have an ice show dance to teach after that.”

“You can stay in my bed instead.”

“You sleep like an octopus; no thanks.”

“But half my program is missing! My jumps and turns still haven’t been choreographed! You can’t go!” Yuzuru pouted, missing a step when he faced Nathan to complain.

Nathan tutted and demonstrated the steps once for Yuzuru, waiting until he copied them perfectly before returning to the conversation.

“That’s what David is for. His turn sequences turn out better than mine and you have Brian to help you with your jumps. You don’t need me after tomorrow. Besides, I was only given thirty-two bars to play with.”

“Not true!” Yuzuru protested, even as he dipped lower for some crossovers. Nathan slowed down to watch the next part of the choreography, letting Yuzuru gracefully fall into his hydroblade without distractions. “Your quadruple lutz-triple toe was the cleanest combo I’ve ever seen and,” he exclaimed as soon as he rose out of the hydroblade, “you need to show me that someday!”

“I haven’t done a quad in over a year, Yuzu.”

“Bullshit.”

If Nathan were drinking water, he would’ve surely spit it out like all the teen shows on American TV do. But instead, he nearly tripped on his toepicks and sputtered incoherently.

Yuzuru went into a combination spin from one of his older routines, spinning a little slower than normal so he could still speak. Nathan skated an orbit around him, carefully watching his positions, how much he traveled, and just nitpicking tiny details.

“W-What? When did you even learn English curse words?” He managed to get out until something caught his eye between spins. “Lengthen your fingers a bit more, don’t curl them.”

“Javi and I watched American movies when we were bored. Besides, I’ve been in Canada since 2012. There’s much that I have learned. Anyways,” Yuzuru opened his arms to slow the spin—in the same recognizable, dramatic Yuzuru fashion—and stopped just in front of Nathan, eyes wide with mischief. “I know you practice quads when you’re alone. It’s just a ‘you’ thing. And before you left for California a few weeks ago, I saw you land a quad toe here. When everyone already left for the day and you were ‘choreographing a piece for someone’s exhibition’. You’re a terrible liar, by the way.”

“Don’t tell Brian,” Nathan pleaded. “If he finds out that I’m jumping quads again, he’ll tell Raf and then the two of them will cut off my head—“

“Just show him how much you’ve healed! Do a jump, right now. Prove you’re okay and come out of retirement. You’re still so young, Nathan—“

“After my accident in 2018—“

“Yes, I know, I know—“ Yuzuru cut him off, holding his hands up to silence Nathan. “‘You can’t skate the same anymore’. But you’re Nathan Chen. You adapt, you change. You’re ‘modern’ just like everyone says.”

“_Used_ to say,” Nathan corrected, skating away from the center ice to give Jason a little more room to practice jumps. Yuzuru searched his face, easily reading the conflicted emotions painted across his eyes. “They also said I would kill myself before I ever came close to beating you. I guess they were right in a way.”

“Nathan—“

“_No_,” Nathan cut him off, a sharp hint of finality and frustration leaving his tone. His tone fell hushed when Jun skated past the two of them, a curious look on his face as he set up for a toe loop. Brian’s watchful gaze drifted from Jun to the two of them and Nathan could just feel it on the back of his head. “We don’t need to talk about this. I made a decision a year ago. For myself and my health. I don’t regret it.”

Yuzuru fell silent and for a moment, Nathan regretted his harsh words. Without anything else to say, he began the next step sequence and Yuzuru followed.

In tandem, they prepped for an axel with a spread eagle. Yuzuru jumped high into the air and completed all three-and-a-half rotations. Nathan popped his turn and just did a single axel for Brian’s sake. Their jumps landed cleanly at the same time, curving in the same arc around the ice and falling easily into the next part of the choreography, a simple set of steps and arm movements. A few half-hearted cheers rang out through the arena.

“You don’t need to listen to everyone, Nathan-kun,” Yuzuru murmured as they were doing crossovers, just loud enough for Nathan to hear over the scrape of their blades over the ice. “Just because they tell you you can’t do it doesn’t mean they’re right.”

“Whatever,” Nathan huffed out. “Also, I choreographed the arabesque with your left arm forward but you’ve used your right arm every single time. Which one do you prefer.”

“Wait, it’s left? Not right. Wait, I’m confused!”

“Just pick one.”

“I don’t know?!”

(Yuzuru eventually picked his right arm.)

“From the beginning.”

Yuzuru groaned, throwing his head back in frustration like a petulant child. He skated to the center of the ice, Nathan quickly running back to the boards for his phone to play the music, and back to correct Yuzuru’s stance.

“Turn out a little more.”

“What?”

“_Turn_—” Nathan cut himself off, stepping closer to nudge Yuzuru’s foot into a turned-out position with his skate. “Proper ballet positions, Yuzu. This is a classical piece, not a hip-hop routine.”

“_Dokusai-sha_,” Yuzuru mumbled even as the music started and his program began, Nathan marking out the moves beside him.

“I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to assume it’s not good.”

The next time they prepped for the jump, Nathan did the triple instead of a single. Yuzuru let out a giggle that sounded like a chorus of bells. To get that sound again, Nathan decided he would do whatever it takes. He hoped Brian wasn’t watching him; although Brian wasn’t his coach, the two had gotten close after weeks spent during pre-season training camps and Brian seemed just as protective of Nathan as Raf was—but it seemed he was out of luck.

“_Nathan_!” Brian’s sharp voice rang through the rink. “_No_ jumps! Your knee can’t handle the stress.”

As expected, the other skaters immediately whipped their heads around to look at the former skater. Fire rose to Nathan’s cheeks as he slowed his momentum. Yuzuru continued the next few steps before he noticed Nathan wasn’t skating beside him.

“Nate-kun?”

“It’s nothing. Keep practicing. I’m gonna head out for lunch.”

“Take me with you!”

Nathan let the corners of his mouth turn up into a small grin, slowing as they approached the edge of the rink. “Isn’t your manager bringing you food?”

“If you take me out for lunch, I can convince her to give the bento box to us for later. You are coming over to my apartment tonight, right?”

Nathan snorted, rolling his eyes, “No. But why don’t you give your manager the day off? I could bring you home after practice today.”

“You’d do that?” Yuzuru asked excitedly, slipping the blade covers Nathan handed him onto his skates. Nathan did the same, albeit less gracefully. Nathan nodded, turning Yuzuru in the direction of the locker rooms with two firm hands on his shoulder.

“I rented a car this time. The last time I came to Canada, I had to rely on taxis and Uber.”

“Poor you, not being able to go wherever you want,” Yuzuru teased. The glint in his eye captivated Nathan and he almost lost balance on his blade guards.

“I need to teach you how to drive, one day. It might be fun.”

Teasingly picking up his pace and glancing behind him, Yuzuru raised an eyebrow. “You can teach me to drive if you join a skating competition after summer ends.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Looks like I won’t be learning to drive anytime soon, then.”

Nathan just laughed.

On the drive to Yuzuru’s house after practice, he wondered what it was like to be as carefree as Yuzuru was. To be able to skate and only skate. Nothing else to worry about. Not even driving.

“I’m surprised you became a choreographer," Yuzuru said out of the blue to himself. "You’ll have to work with Raf’s kids now. You’re way too scary to work with young children. Scary and mean.”

An offended sort of gasp escaped Nathan’s throat and he lifted one hand off the steering wheel to jab it into Yuzuru’s side in retaliation. Somehow, his fingers found their mark even though he didn’t take his eyes off the road once.

“I am not!” He protested vehemently.

“_Uso tsuke_,” Yuzuru stated, accenting each syllable to make some sort of point; but the point was lost on Nathan’s ear as his Japanese comprehension was basic at best.

“Uh… translate?”

“You’re lying,” Yuzuru corrected himself, shuffling in the passenger seat of Nathan’s rental sedan. “Children terrify you. And you terrify them. I’ve seen how you act around the juniors.”

“Because they’re all high-pitched giggles and elbows and awkward heights,” Nathan grimaced, glancing over for a split second to meet Yuzuru’s gaze. As he turned back to the road, however, a smirk made its way onto his face. “Well… you’re all three of those things and it never really bothered me, I guess.”

Yuzuru let out a scandalous noise, raising an arm to smack Nathan’s shoulder in revenge.

"I'm not an '_awkward height_', you're just short!"

"You're not tall, either."

“You take that back—“

“Don’t injure your driver—“

“I’ll do whatever I want—“

“This is what I mean, you and the juniors flail too much.”

“What does ‘flail’ even mean?!”

Nathan laughed, bright and happy, his eyes crinkling and matching the light of the sun setting along the horizon. “It’s in reference to uncoordinated movement. Clumsy, almost.”

“I’m not clumsy.”

“I beg to differ.”

Yuzuru sank into his seat, petulantly crossing his arms over his chest. He blew a lock of hair out of his eyes with a single, powerful huff through his lips. “You’re mean after practices.”

“According to you, I’m mean all the time.”

“That’s right,” Yuzuru hummed, bringing his legs up onto the seat and crossing them, somehow fitting his limbs into the confined are. “And that’s why the kids are scared of you.”

Nathan shot him an unimpressed look but didn’t retaliate.

In that single glance, Nathan noticed a couple of things about Yuzuru. How the sun turned his hair from a deep coffee brown to a honey-edged gold. How Yuzuru’s pale skin seemed to have acquired a little bit of a tan in the summer months. How his eyelashes brushed the top of his cheeks with every delicate flutter of his eyes. How his smile brightened up the entire skyline, even more so than the setting sun framing his profile like a halo.

_Beautiful_, Nathan wanted to say. _An angel_.

(He didn’t say it out loud, _obviously_.)

“They just think I’m bad luck or something. The prodigy-turned-failure.”

“Don’t say that about yourself.”

Nathan was startled at the sudden change in tone of Yuzuru’s voice and chanced another glance at him. He was shocked to find Yuzuru’s eyes, already trained on him, suddenly filled with a barrel of sadness.

Nathan turned away before he could be pulled into the depths of Yuzuru’s eyes. It seemed that when Yuzuru felt, he did so with his entire body. Elation ran over his skin like electricity, love poured out of his chest they way blood would, and sadness resonated in his soul.

Nathan and Yuzuru didn’t speak the rest of the car ride.

Pulling up to Yuzuru’s modest townhouse flipped a switch in the mood of the car.

“My mom left for Japan last week, since my training's mostly done. You can stay over if you want to,” Yuzuru suggested as he stepped out of the car.

Nathan popped the trunk and picked up Yuzuru’s gym bag, extending his arm to hand it over. “I’m sleeping at my hotel, Yuzu. End of story.”

Yuzuru pouted. “If you’re going to leave me, at least be nice and carry my bag inside for me.”

Nathan rolled his eyes but complied, shifting the strap over his shoulder and slamming the trunk closed. He would _not_ step inside. Nathan knew from experience that if he went inside the door, he would not be leaving.

“Fine. But I’m not your bellboy. This is a one-time-offer.”

He followed Yuzuru to the door, waiting as the older skater fumbled with the keys and finally unlocked the door. When Yuzuru stepped inside, Nathan held out the bag again, an exasperated look on his face as he watched Yuzuru pout.

“Here’s your bag—”

Instead of taking the bag, Yuzuru grabbed his entire arm and yanked him in the door. Nathan tripped on the threshold and would have fallen if it weren’t for him slamming into Yuzuru’s chest before he could hit the floor.

A wave of vanilla and lemongrass suddenly enveloped Nathan’s senses as he scrambled to regain his footing.

The door closed behind him, and if it weren’t for Yuzuru’s warm—_distracting_—grip on his waist, Nathan would surely be cursing about how he got bamboozled. A word that Yuzuru still didn’t really understand how to use, but tried to incorporate in his sentences as often as possible.

And then Yuzuru’s lips were on his own, hands pressing into Nathan’s back to pull him up into the kiss; the desperate sort of kind, all hot and handsy and full of tongue. Nathan arched up into Yuzuru, forgetting all about his frustration in being tricked inside. How _could_ he remember, with Yuzuru’s tongue coiling around his urgently, stealing his breath and his thoughts and everything in between.

Yuzuru’s hands slipped under his shirt, pressing him that much closer. It still felt impossibly too far. Nathan didn’t object when his shirt was lifted up and tossed somewhere to the side. The extra skin contact just raised the temperature of the living room to sweltering heights.

Somehow, they made it to Yuzuru’s bedroom without ever breaking apart or tripping and falling. Nathan pushed Yuzuru down onto the bed, taking in the other skater’s pleased grin and triumphant look.

“You planned this, didn’t you,” Nathan bent down to mumble against his collarbones, nipping at the skin and leaving red marks in his path.

A breathless sort of chuckle left Yuzuru’s lips even as he tangled his fingers in Nathan’s curls. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But the smug tone of his voice said otherwise.

Nathan leaned back up to kiss the smirk away.

Needless to say, Nathan didn’t end up leaving that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty good in a few languages, but Japanese...? NOT one of those languages. If there's a mistake, let me know :)
> 
> 1\. damare yo : "shut up"  
\- ‘yo’ is the informal, kind of rude way to say something, right?
> 
> 2\. kimi wa mondaidesu : "you're a problem (child)"  
\- I couldn’t find a better translation ;-;  
\- I hope it’s accurate enough lmao... google translate don’t fail me now !!
> 
> 3\. dokusai-sha : "(you're a) dictator”  
\- but you can dictate me if yanno what I mean ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> 4\. uso tsuke : “(you’re a) liar"  
\- oof


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _ And the worst part is,_ his tratorious mind whispered to him. _ It’s all your fault, Nathan._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's no Japanese in this chapter... idk if I should be thankful or sad ;-;

> “_I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there’s no relief in waking_.”
> 
> — Suzanne Collins

* * *

_Ohmygod I’m actually here. _

Nathan had to pinch himself multiple times as he stepped off the shuttle bus that contained a handful of other Olympic-medalist-hopefuls from the airport to PyeongChang. He even convinced Adam—who he managed to land a seat next to the entire bus ride—to pinch him a few times as well, even though the other skater gave him a few weird looks on the way to the village.

_I’mhereI’mhereI’mactuallyherewhatthefu— _

The Team USA Figure Skaters all left at the same time and on the same plane to South Korea and Nathan, of course, gravitated towards his classmates and the select few he saw often in ice shows and competitions; the Shibutanis, for instance, or Karen and Vincent. Adam just happened to be the closest victim to latch onto.

(Nathan never had a habit of making friends. It wasn’t his fault he was antisocial. Add to that the stress of being an elite figure skater; he just never had the time to go out.)

The US Figure Skating team chose him for the short men’s program. His heart started beating in his ears as soon as he stepped onto the ice for warm-ups. Never had he felt this nervous before a free skate, and never had his legs felt so numb while on the ice.

Ever since he started skating, being on the ice felt euphoric in a sense. Free, light, and almost like being in water. Now, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, Nathan glanced over at Raf.

His coach eyed him with concern, recognizing Nathan’s apprehension even from a distance. Rafael knew him well enough. Brian, who stood a little distance to the right of Raf seemed to also take note of Nathan’s unsure posture on the ice, abandoning his critical gaze of Yuzuru for a few moments to take a once-over of Nathan.

In response to both of them, Nathan shrugged and set up for his first jump in _Nemesis,_ a quad lutz-triple toe combination.

In the air, his legs still felt numb and staticy, like it had fallen asleep. The pit in the bottom of his stomach only grew in size and magnitude, spreading to his chest. He didn’t think he would rotate the jump at _all_.

But he landed the jump perfectly. Even the toe loop after the lutz.

Cocking his head to the side curiously and staring at the indents in the ice, Nathan shoved the feelings aside. They were probably just nerves from being at the Olympics for the first time. Then the team event began, and Nathan was ushered to the main rink.

The other short programs passed by quickly as soon as Nathan stepped off the ice. He worked to get the numb feeling to recede back into his core, away from his fingers and toes so that he would be able to perform the entirety of the short program. 

“You’ve got this, Nate,” Raf mumbled, setting a hand on Nathan’s shoulder that still felt warm, even through his ‘Team USA’ jacket. “Just like any other competition.”

Even Brian stopped by to wish him good luck before his short program began. He didn't have much to say, and his words did nothing against the weird feeling in Nathan's fingers but he appreciated the sentiment: “I know you can do it, Nathan. Remember all the summer training camps.”

Nathan smiled in gratitude and just as the ice was finished being cleared, Nathan stepped onto the ice.

It seemed that even with his thick boots and the blade of his skates underneath him, Nathan could still feel the cold of the ice underneath his feet like he were standing on it barefoot. The icy feeling just got worse the longer he skated around the rink. It crawled up his calf muscles like icy tendrils, locking him down against the ice.

The previous skater’s score was announced throughout the rink, and Nathan vaguely remembers it as a jumble of numbers, enough for him to absentmindedly clap for the score but not enough to break through the barrier quickly cementing itself around Nathan’s entire being. The chatter of the audience felt like a swarm of bees right next to his ear, and when he set up for a single jump just to test the ice, the skid of his blades against the rink sounded like a gong ringing through Nathan’s body.

(Something felt off.)

His name was announced and force of habit caused him to raise his arms and greet the audience, even though the numbing feeling in his fingers made his elbows lock up.

_ As if the entire world didn’t hate him enough for not being graceful enough_, Nathan bitterly thought. _ Now my lines won’t even be as nice_. Stupid elbows.

The music began as normal and Nathan had the moves so deeply ingrained into his mind that he didn’t even need to think about the contraction of his muscles—not that he could feel it with his unresponsive limbs.

Setting up for the first jump—the quadruple lutz-triple toe loop combination—felt so very wrong, like the ice were about to run out from underneath Nathan, or he was about to jump off the edge of a cliff. Still, he persisted.

(_So these are what nerves feel like_...)

_ It’s the Olympics_, he told himself. _ No backing out now_.

And as he extended his leg to pick for the quad, in that very instant, all the numbness snapped into non-existence, like the flick of a switch or the snap of a finger. And as the feeling washed over Nathan, right at the beginning of his second rotation in the air, he could only form one coherent thought amidst the chaos of his mind.

_ Oh no._

As Nathan landed, his toe pick caught in the ice, but his body kept rotating and he lost his balance. He felt one single _crack_ along his right shin, a _ pop _ when his knee hit the ice, and then nothing when his chin slammed against the floor.

_ Oh no._

When Nathan came to, it was to the smell of plaster and antiseptic. His eyes refused to open but his other senses slowly began to emerge from the darkness. The beeping of a heart monitor, his own breath rattling in his chest, a distant murmur of words. A dryness in his throat. The warmth of a hand in his. An itch right on the bridge of his nose. A pressing feeling at his temples.

Nathan tried to open his eyes, growing increasingly frustrated when his eyelids refused to respond to his commands. Everything felt sluggish and heavy, which was not something Nathan was used to; even as a young child, he had always possessed lightning-fast reflexes and been on his feet in some type of sport. Sluggish was not a word in Nathan’s vocabulary.

_ Something’s wrong,_ he couldn’t help but think. _ Something is horribly, horribly wrong. _

“Mom, I think he’s waking up.”

“Nathan? Oh god,” his mom mumbled, the hand in his own tightening briefly. He tried to squeeze back, but found that even the tips of his fingers wouldn't respond. They felt heavy and cold and _wrong_. “Janice, press the button. Call the doctors.”

“Nate? It’s Colin. You’re in Seoul right now.”

_ Seoul? Why am I in Seoul? Weren’t we in PyeongChang? Why are you calling the doctors? _

“Nathan? It’s me. We need you to open up your eyes, okay?”

_ Shut up Tony, I’m trying, _ Nathan wanted to scream at his other older brother. He couldn't get the words out, though. 

Somewhere a little distance away, Alice, his other older sister laughed, a bright tone that sounded like bells and the gentle tumble of ocean waves. Alice had a deep voice, yet her laugh was so contradictive—high and light and happy. “Look, he just scowled! He’s totally cursing you out right now.”

“Do it again,” Janice stage-whispered, a waver of emotion deeply hidden in her voice. “Maybe he’ll wake up.”

Tony chuckled, ruffling a hand through Nathan’s hair, something he used to love to do when his curls were longer, even though Nathan would smack him away for doing so. “If you wake up, little bro, you can curse me out all you want. I won’t even yell at you.”

_ Yes you will, jerk._

Nathan’s eyes fluttered open, and he was met with a mass of white. Bright, blinding fluorescent light and a few blurs of black in the corners of his eyes. It took him more than a few moments to focus on one of those blurs.

_Tony._ Nathan’s soul sang. _TonyTonyTony it’s you. _

His eyes focused on the sharp jawline of his brother’s face and traced it up to his eyes, which were glassy and red at the edges.

_ No, why are you crying? What happened? _ Nathan wanted to ask, but it only came out as a scratchy groan.

“Water, someone get him water,” Alice urged from the corner of the room, refusing to step closer so that Nathan wouldn’t feel crowded. Nathan appreciated the gesture, but at the same time wanted all his family closer. He could sense some sort of impending doom hanging over the room like a dark cloud, enveloping all their souls. Nathan wanted to protect them from it, even in his tired, painkiller-induced state.

The top of his hospital bed lifted slowly and then a cup was pressed to his lips. He drank slowly and calmly, even though it was insanely tempting to just down the whole cup full of _ relief _and_ soothing_.

The doctor finally responded to the call, breezing in the doorway and trailed by two nurses carrying a selection of items.

“Nathan,” the doctor greeted in slightly accented English. “You’re awake. I’m Doctor Jung. Mrs. Chen, I’m going to have to ask you to step away so I can check his eyes.”

Nathan’s mom did so all too hastily, making room for the doctor to stand at Nathan’s bedside.

“What happened?” Nathan managed to get out on a scratchy voice.

“You had an accident on the ice. You have a mild concussion from when your chin hit the ice, so some confusion is normal. You should remember everything soon. You were brought to Seoul when surgery was deemed necessary.”

“Surgery? What— why can’t I feel my legs?”

“Your lower body is under heavy anesthesia. You have a grade three PCL sprain and a spiral fracture on your tibia. Both on your right leg.”

(Nathan didn’t miss the way his entire family cringed and turned away at the Doctor Jung’s words.)

His breath sped up, his heartbeat echoing in his ears. He knew what his PLC and tibia were, and just how important they were. A _spiral fracture_? A _grade three sprain_? What did those mean? “How bad?”

“We needed to operate on your tibia. You have two rods and multiple screws in your leg right now. All temporary, but still there. Your PCL will heal on its own. Slowly, but they will both heal.”

_No._

Nathan didn’t need to hear anymore. An injury to the point of rods and screws? Nathan would never skate competitively again.

“The healing process should take about six to eight weeks total, and you can start physical therapy once the bolts are removed from your leg. You may have to retire from competitive skating, but you will live a mostly normal life again…”

Nathan barely heard the doctor. He sat there, staring at the lump underneath his blanket where his right leg _ should be,_ only he couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t move it. Like it wasn’t even there at all.

Staring at his right leg, Nathan couldn’t help but get emotional. Because the one thing that was _ his_, the _ one _ thing he loved more than himself, he would never be able to do again. Never again would he feel the euphoria of twizzling through a rink, never would he feel dizzy with joy and the aftermath of a spin sequence. Never would he be able to jump high off the ice and feel himself fly again. _Never._

Even eight weeks later, after the metal was finally removed from his leg and the stitches were still freshly wrapped, Nathan couldn’t even walk to the fucking bathroom on his own. His black custom skates sat on his desk, taunting him to just _ get up _ off the bed and _ do something._

But he couldn’t.

Couldn’t do a quad again, couldn’t skate again, couldn’t even walk on his own.

_ And the worst part is,_ his traitorous mind whispered to him, curling like wisps of smoke and devilish grins around his neck. _ It’s all your fault, Nathan._

Nathan awoke with a strangled-sounding breath. His eyes flew open and it took him a moment to realize that the darkness wasn’t the backs of his eyelids, but the dark ceiling above him. He took a moment to collect his thoughts, wiping the sweat off his brow. His limbs didn't feel right—they felt disjointed somehow, like they'd been ripped out of their sockets and put in backwards.

Sucking in a shaky breath through his teeth, he worked to untangle Yuzuru’s arms from around his waist and sit up in the bed. A faint soreness throughout his entire body made itself known as he sat up. Nathan adjusted the covers around Yuzuru’s still-sleeping form and padded over to the connecting bathroom.

He turned on the shower to the hottest setting and didn’t even wait for the water to heat up before stepping under the spray. He needed to wash away the dream as best as possible, temperature be damned.

When Yuzuru roused from a comfortable sleep, he first noticed the low throbbing pressure in his lower back. A reminder of his... previous _ activities _ with Nathan. His entire body rang with discomfort; and yet, he enjoyed it.

The next thing he noticed was the distinct lack of _ Nathan _ in his arms. It was a little strange. Both Yuzuru and Nathan were very ardent cuddlers in their sleep, so whenever they shared a bed it was nearly impossible to pull them apart. Even just naps in the locker room made them form some weird sort of tangled web with their limbs that couldn’t be broken without full cooperation from at least one of them (Javi could attest; he often called them 'superglue demon-octopi sleepers'). The fact that Nathan was gone startled Yuzuru awake enough that his eyes flew open.

The bed beside him still bore the indent of Nathan’s weight, as well as a little bit of his warmth. Belatedly, Yuzuru heard the shower running in the en suite. Suddenly aware of the stickiness of his… well, _ entire _body, Yuzuru decided that a shower would probably be beneficial to him, too. He and Nathan could even save water and all if Yuzuru snuck in. It was almost five in the morning, anyways. Almost time to get up for practice. Maybe Nathan could drive him there, too, if Yuzuru asked nicely.

Not even bothering with picking up clothes from the floor to protect his decency, Yuzuru galumphed over to the bathroom, nearly tripping on a pile of discarded clothes because the room was so devoid of light. At least his mom wasn’t home. Yuzuru could be as loud as he wanted to be.

(In all the least innocent ways, too.)

Opening the door to the bathroom was like entering a jungle. The humidity and sheer _heat_ hit Yuzuru like a wave. Worrying at the skin of his lip, Yuzuru entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

Beyond the fogged-up glass of the shower stall, Yuzuru could make out Nathan’s form, eerily still—but still upright—under the spray of the showerhead. Cursing under his breath in Japanese, Yuzuru slid open the shower door and reached around the scalding spray to turn it to a more comfortable temperature. He recognized that haunted look in Nathan’s eyes. It wasn’t good.

Nathan shivered when Yuzuru stepped into the stall, his skin still adjusting to the sudden temperature change. Yuzuru immediately pressed his entire body to Nathan’s back, using his two whole inches of height difference to his advantage. He just wanted to wrap Nathan up and protect him. Tilting Nathan’s head to the side revealed red-rimmed eyes and a distant gaze.

“Hey,” Yuzuru mumbled, pressing his lips to the space between Nathan’s eyebrows. “I'm here. You are fine.”

Nathan jolted suddenly, revealing just how out-of-it he was. Yuzuru cursed internally and worked to ground Nathan again, scraping his fingernails lightly against Nathan's skull in the way he loved it best.

“W-when did you get here?”

“Just now, shhh,” Yuzuru comforted, running a hand up and down Nathan’s side, from his thigh all the way up to his ribcage. “Everything is fine. You’re here with me, now. No more bad dreams.”

Nathan relaxed into Yuzuru’s grip, taking deep breaths and letting the water wash over the two of them. He leaned his head back against Yuzuru’s shoulder, letting out contented hums when Yuzuru pressed nipping kisses down his neck to the junction of his shoulder. Slowly, his muscles began to relax, leaning his weight onto Yuzuru who took it with ease.

There they stood, two broken souls in their worn-out, broken bodies. Yuzuru’s ankle probably needed about twenty years more to heal and the lines tracing Nathan’s hip and shin from surgeries would always be light pink scar tissue, raised skin, and unsteady bones underneath. Both had scars on their chins from slamming hard against the ice.

Yuzuru pressed an index finger to the little line along Nathan’s chin, soothing the area gently as if it were a fresh wound.

“You took care of me earlier this evening,” Yuzuru murmur into Nathan’s ear, relishing in the little shiver that rang down his body. Yuzuru pushed forward and pressed Nathan’s chest to the shower wall, letting his fingers trace the water droplets in their path down Nathan’s body. “Now is my turn.”

The little breathy moan Nathan let out only encouraged Yuzuru to go further, pressing their lips together and swallowing down the unsure noises Nathan made. This was far from the first time they had been intimate with one another... but this was the first time in a while Nathan would be on the receiving end.

“Trust me,” Yuzuru cooed, taking each of Nathan’s gasps and storing them away mentally for personal use.

Nathan trembled in Yuzuru’s arms looking much more fragile than Yuzuru knew him to be. It suddenly his Yuzuru that this boy in his arms was four whole years younger. Four years less of experience, four fewer years of dealing with the pain and disappointment that always came with age. Yuzuru wanted to wrap up the stars and hand them on a silver platter to this young man, to prove that he was worthy. To prove he could take care of him.

“Yuzu?” Nathan mumbled out the question against his lips, interlacing their fingers together. The tight squeeze of his fingers in Yuzuru’s spoke more volume than his next words: “I trust you.”

_ I love you,_ Yuzuru wanted to say. _ I love you, I love your twinkling laugh, I love the passion in your eyes, I love how your body feels like rose petals against mine— _

But the words didn’t come out. Instead, he let Nathan nose his way down his neck, lips feeling like a brand of hot iron against his pulse, mumbling sweet nothings that were indecipherable over the _ pitter-patter _ of the shower. Yuzuru mumbled them all back in Japanese, letting his free hand wander to the places that made Nathan’s breath hitch the most, using the water to his advantage (plus the lube he thankfully kept in the shower).

"Just me, right?" Yuzuru asked, just to be on the safe side. He already knew the answer, but it still felt right to ask. Like a tradition or something stupid like that.

"Just you," was the answer.

His heart may have skipped a beat when Nathan whispered the words back to him.

Later on, when Yuzuru slid inside him, Nathan’s chin tilted up to the ceiling and his lips formed the shape of an ‘o’ as a moan choked out of his throat, pure pleasure and surprise. Yuzuru pressed a feather-light kiss to Nathan’s temple, letting him adjust for a few moments. Nathan whined, leaning forward to press his forehead against the shower wall to ground himself, grasping Yuzuru's hand tighter in his blind state of euphoria.

"You're gorgeous," Yuzuru breathed out, right against Nathan's hairline. "You're doing so well."

Yuzuru could feel the electricity running along Nathan's skin, mingling between their bodies and the stray water droplets. Yuzuru let out a deep moan, holding himself back from rutting into Nathan in case he wasn't ready. With his entire body pressed up against Nathan's, Yuzuru could feel even Nathan's slightest shift; how his lungs heaved for air in short stuttering gasps, how his heart practically pounded out of his chest, and how his knees trembled with the weight of holding his own body up in his state.

“Yuzu—” Nathan whispered, eyes tightly shut but lips blindly searching for Yuzuru’s against his own, neck craned at what had to be an uncomfortable angle. Yuzuru had no choice but to oblige, placing a sweet kiss on Nathan’s lips. He pulled back, pressing their foreheads to one another, and rolled his hips in a way that caused Nathan to arch against him desperately, writhing in Yuzuru’s grasp. A loud cry escaped his lips, high-pitched and broken and absolutely beautiful. Yuzuru reveled in the way he could make Nathan cry out; Nathan was a masculine force on the ice, a domineering presence. Only Yuzuru could draw out such needy, submissive sounds from Nathan.

'_Just you_,' Nathan had whispered only a few moments before, and Yuzuru believed him wholeheartedly.

He rolled his hips again, drawing out another choking moan from Nathan's lips.

“Yuzu, _ please_.”

And who was Yuzuru to deny such a request?

Shifting his hips back slowly, letting Nathan feel every inch of him leave, he grasped Nathan’s hips with both hands and waited until the younger's breath evened out just enough. Then, he slammed back in with such force that it left Nathan a sobbing mess against the shower wall.

  
They were, unfortunately, _very _late to that morning’s practice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe i cried while writing this chapter... maybe i didn't... yOU CANT PROVE ANYTHING
> 
> i just hate writing hurt characters ;-;


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You can still do quad jump?” Shoma asked, eyebrows knotted together in confusion.
> 
> Nathan shrugged, dusting the snow off his gloves before it could melt. “Yeah, a few times. It was really difficult at first but I can do a toe and salchow now. The loop is getting there. The other jumps… not so much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eah isn’t helping me edit this fic (she’s offering little tips and helping with the plotline but I’m otherwise on my own) so if you find any stupid mistakes, let me know! I’ve done my best but I’m still imperfect.
> 
> Eah is also busy working on my pacrim stuff in the meanwhile but I’ll do my best to get her brilliant brain in on this project because I could use her prowess!
> 
> As always, the translations are at the very end in the notes! (please let me know if any are incorrect lol)

> “Never give up on something that you can't go a day without thinking about.”
> 
> — Sir Winston Churchill

* * *

“No, turn your head to the right… uh—” Nathan cursed under his breath, scratching at the back of his neck, willing Yuzuru’s late-night Japanese lessons to somehow refresh themselves instantaneously. _“A-atama_ _… migi!”_

_ “Migi_! Okay,” Shoma parroted, fixing the step sequence obediently. He skated to a stop, a wide smile on his face. _“__Watashi wa sore o tadashiku shimashita ka?”_

“What?”

“Good?”

“Yes, very good. _Otsukaresama deshita_. I think that section is finished for today.”

“_Arigato,_ Chen-san. Thank you for your help.”

“You can call me Nathan-kun if you want. That’s what Yuzuru calls me,” Nathan said, skating to the center of the ice to join Shoma.

“Yes, Nathan-kun_."_

“Man, this rink is nice,” Nathan commented, looking around for the first time since he arrived at Chukyo University. As soon as he stepped in, late because his flight was delayed a few hours, Shoma had rushed him into the locker room so they could fix the empty section in his new free skate. He didn’t have the time yet to really take in his surroundings. And now that time advanced far into the evening and all the other skaters had left, he could finally relax and enjoy being on unfamiliar ice. “You must love it here.”

Shoma nodded, lazily going through his newly-choreographed step sequence as he spoke. _“__Chukyo Daigaku _takes care of skaters very well. I am thankful.”

“And at this time, you don’t even have to share the ice!”

“No. All other skaters want to sleep early. For their skin.”

Nathan couldn’t help but let out a laugh, falling into the step sequence with Shoma side-by-side. Left. Right. Left. Arm up. Three-turn. Nathan hummed along to the lead violin melody, hoping the tempo matched the original track close enough. “What jump did Takeshi want you to do after the twizzles?”

“Triple axel-quadruple toe,” Shoma said between his twizzles, setting up for the jump. 

Nathan let out a huff, closely copying Shoma’s backwards glide. “You’re making this really hard for me aren’t you?”

Shoma looked alarmed for a moment as he shifted his weight— “What do you mean?” —and then jumped, snapping into his three-and-a-half-rotations in tandem with Nathan. The second jump—the quad toe—came at much difficulty to both skaters, Shoma underrotating just enough to knock him off his landing leg and Nathan landing too far forward that he had to set down a hand.

Nathan let out a little excited whoop even though his jump was poorly landed, lifting his arms triumphantly above his head.

“You can still do quad jump?” Shoma asked, eyebrows knotted together in confusion.

Nathan shrugged, dusting the snow off his gloves before it could melt. “Yeah, a few times. It was really difficult at first but I can do a toe and salchow now. The loop is getting there. The other jumps… not so much.” 

He had to remember that this wasn’t Yuzuru or any of the other skaters under Raf or Brian who were used to him skating the choreo alongside them. Shoma wasn’t used to Nathan distracting him from jumps, nor had he seen Nathan perform a quad since before the Olympics.

“Wanna see something cool?” Nathan suddenly asked, face lighting up skating backwards towards the opposite side of the rink. “I’ve been working on it recently.”

“Okay...?”

Nathan chuckled at Shoma’s scepticism and began setting up for a jump, taking as long as he needed to since there were no other skaters around to accidentally bump into.

Set-up. Jump. Rotations. All four of them. 

Land.

“Yes!” Nathan couldn’t help the triumphant shout as he perfectly landed his quad loop—probably the cleanest one he’s done since coming out of his injury. Shoma enthusiastically clapped, cheering even as Nathan skated back over to him.

“What about the injury?”

“My shin is fine. It’s my knee that everyone’s concerned about. They don’t think it can handle some of the landings,” Nathan sighed, rubbing at his right knee absentmindedly. “It hurts, but it’s nothing new, I’ve always skated after a mistake on ice. This mistake just happened to be very public.”

“They are scared.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame them.”

“And so are you.”

“What?” Nathan paused and turned to face Shoma, face full of denial. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes you are. You say you have always had injury. You have always skated with injury. What is different now, then?”

Nathan didn’t expect the question and scrambled for an answer. “T-this isn’t just a random sprain, Shoma. I had to have surgery to get it fixed. Both my knee and my shin.”

“What about your other sureg— suruger—” Shoma let out a frustrated grunt. “Your hip. Was that not also injured?”

“Yes, it was…”

"You can do quad loop."

"Yeah..."

“I don’t think it is about your knee. I think you believe them. I think you are scared trying because you have fear that they might be right,” Shoma said, sounding eloquent even with his limited knowledge of the English language.

“Are they _not_ right?”

“I do not think they are. You are happiest when on ice. It is your _ ikigai.” _

Nathan wrinkled his nose, brain desperately filtering through all the odd Japanese lessons Yuzuru offered in their free time. He couldn’t recall what the word meant. “I don’t know what that means.”

“That does not matter.”

“You’re acting weird.”

“I am your _ nīsan._ You cannot disrespect me.”

“Sorry. I still don’t know what… Igi— iki… whatever that word means.”

_ “Ikigai__,”_ Shoma corrected, a wise and patient look on his face that didn't match his youthful look. “Ask your kareshi_,”_ he then taunted, skating off to the side of the rink to practice his combo jump again. 

“Okay, I know what that means. But I don’t have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend, for that matter,” Nathan made his way to the boards to take a sip of water, relaxing in the comfort of the empty rink and sound of blades against the ice. Letting himself sink into the zen and peace of skating just for the heck of it.

“Yes you do. Yuzuru-kun_.” _

Nathan nearly slipped on the ice when he heard Yuzuru’s name being mentioned. Screw being zen. “I— He’s not— I don’t—”

Shoma cut Nathan off with a peal of laughter, brushing a stray curl out of his eyes as he spoke. “_Anata wa zetsubō-tekidesu!_ I am not blind, Nathan-kun_._ You love two things in this world. Skating and _ Hanyu Yuzuru-san.” _

Nathan pushed off the boards to chase Shoma around the rink, the two of them giggling and having fun playing around like little children. It was rare that skaters of Shoma’s caliber (and Nathan’s former caliber) had the time to goof off on the ice, especially all alone.

Shoma even coached Nathan through a fully-rotated quad flip!

(It was shaky, and Nathan had to set down a hand, but it was still fully-rotated, which was further than he's gotten before.)

When they finally closed down the rink for the night, Shoma and Nathan realized they would be seeing each other the very next morning for Stars on Ice: Japan rehearsal, of which Nathan would be choreographing a group number. They parted ways at the subway station, stepping onto trains heading different directions with promises to meet up on the way to Osaka. When Shoma finally left his field of view, Nathan realized he never denied Shoma’s final statement.

He facetimed Yuzuru that night once he arrived at his hotel and got ready for bed. Yuzuru answered the call in the locker room, apparently having just changed into his practice clothes for the day.

“Saya is going to the first show, and she was invited to see the morning dress rehearsal. Say ‘hi’ to her for me, will you?”

“Why don’t you tell her yourself? She’s your sister.”

“Because I won’t be there, _ baka__,”_ Yuzuru teased, tightening the laces on his skates with a grin playing at the corner of his mouth. Nathan stepped out-of-frame to change out of his practice clothes, still a little damp at the ankles from ice spray. “Just talk to her a little. I told her to bring her skates so maybe you can get her to step onto the rink for a little while.”

“Can she speak English?”

“Not as well as I can, but yes. Probably a little better than Shoma.”

“Don’t discredit Sho!” Nathan exclaimed, recalling just how articulate Shoma had spoken at the rink. His voice probably sounded muffled from pulling his shirt over his head, but he knew Yuzuru understood the basic meaning. “He’s a lot better than he seems. He looks like a deer in headlights whenever English comes up on camera, but he’s very well-spoken.”

A strained look painted onto Yuzuru’s face as he switched feet and began lacing up his other boot. “What does ‘deer in headlights’ mean?”

“Caught by surprise,” was the most basic interpretation Nathan could think of. 

Yuzuru simply nodded and double-tied his laces. He picked up his phone off the bench and stood up to walk to the ice. “You should be fine. My sister is very… ah— how do you Americans say it? Chill?”

Nathan laughed, nodding and stepping back into the frame, just pulling a loose v-neck shirt on for sleep. “But you also told me she’s very overprotective.”

“That, too.”

Nathan sighed. “Why do you even want me to meet her? She’ll probably get along better with Shoma or Javi. She probably knows more about them, too.”

“I want you to meet her because you are important to me. And she is another very important person in my life. You two probably would have met anyways.”

Nathan conceded, stuffing his things haphazardly into his suitcase in a way that would probably make his mother scream. “Saya, right? So I would call her Hanyu-san? How many years older than me is she?”

“Four years older than me. So nine years older than you.”

“God, when did you get so old, Yuzu?”

“I am not old.”

“Right. You’re forever a child.”

“Take that back!”

“Is that Nathan?” A familiar voice asked from off-screen. Jason’s head popped up over Yuzuru’s shoulder, squeezing himself into the frame as Yuzuru playfully swatted him away to no avail. “Hi Nate! How’s Japan?”

“Going good, Jason! I’m about to go to sleep because I have Stars on Ice rehearsals tomorrow.”

“Ah, right,” Jason looked sheepish for a moment. “Time differences.”

“Isn’t Javi going to be there?” Yuzuru asked.

“You’re right!” Nathan exclaimed, walking over to the bed. “I’ll have to find time to talk with him sometime tomorrow. I haven’t seen him since—”

Nathan stopped himself in his tracks.

_'Since the Olympics'_ were the words he was going to say. But he didn’t. 

Yuzuru and Jason shared a glance that wasn’t missed by Nathan, although he couldn’t decipher the meaning behind the look. Yuzuru turned back to Nathan with a sigh playing on his tongue.

“I-I haven’t seen him in a while,” Nathan amended when the other two skaters didn’t break the silence, finally settling under the covers of the hotel bed. “It will be nice to talk to him after so long.”

“You should go to sleep now, Nate-kun,” Yuzuru suggested in that no-nonsense tone of his that sounded really nice but obviously had an underlying threat. “You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow.”

“R-right,” Nathan stuttered, “I’ll see you guys when I get back. I have two weeks before Stars on Ice: USA and I could probably teach you the group number early, Jason. I’ll probably spend a few days in Canada before going back to Lakewood.”

“Sweet!” Jason exclaimed. “Well, I’ve got to go. Tracy has been giving me the stink-eye ever since we stepped out of the locker room.”

“Oh, yeah. Go practice. Don’t let me hold you back.”

“See you soon, Nathan!”

And with that, Jason bounded off, balancing precariously on his skate guards.

Nathan worried at his chapped lips when Yuzuru didn’t speak for a few moments. He opened his mouth to ask why Yuzuru’s mood came to a sudden shift.

“Yuzur—”

“I thought I told you not to say those things about yourself.”

“What are you—”

“You just said ‘Go practice. Don’t let me hold you back’,” Yuzuru said, a dark look in his eyes. “You are not holding anyone back. You are not a failure. You are not a disappointment. You are Nathan Chen.”

“Yes, I’m Nathan Chen. That doesn’t really mean anything to me right now, Yuzu.”

A sad smile seemed to materialize out of nowhere, replacing the dark, angry, frustrated look on Yuzuru’s face. “Well, it means the world to me.”

Nathan’s brain came to a screeching halt. “Wait, what does—”

“I’ve got to go, Nathan,” Yuzuru cut him off. “And you need to sleep. Have fun with Javi and Saya. Oh, and Junhwan will be there too! You don't know him very well, but you can get to know him during the tour. I will see you in a few days.”

The call cut off before Nathan could get another word in.

He forgot to ask Yuzuru what _ikigai_ meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. atama : head
> 
> 2\. migi : right (as in right-hand side)
> 
> 3\. watashi wa sore o tadashiku shimashita ka? : "did i do it correctly?"  
\- yes, you did shoma. but i, the author, did not.
> 
> 4\. otsukaresama deshita : "good job" / "thanks for the hard work" (no direct translation)  
\- cue sope's 'otsukare'
> 
> 5\. daigaku : univeristy  
\- chukyo is the name of the university, so i did not include a translation for it
> 
> 6\. ikigai : "reason for living" / "reason to get up in the morning" (no direct translation)  
\- i saw this word and I had to use it in the story... the fact that it came to be the title was purely coincidental  
\- the working title of this fic before it became 'ikigai' was 'zuzuthan, because i have no self-control'  
\- the google doc is still titled that, though...
> 
> 7\. nīsan : older brother  
\- whenever i hear this word, i think of fullmetal alchemist
> 
> 8\. kareshi : boyfriend  
\- something i, the author, do not have
> 
> 9\. anata wa zetsubō-tekidesu : "you are hopeless"  
\- aka probably what my japanese friends think whenever they see me
> 
> 10\. baka : idiot  
\- do i really have to include the translation for this word? i'm pretty sure most people know it lol


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ohmygod I see her,” Nathan gasped out, easily recognizing Yuzuru’s older sister on the sidewalk, especially since they looked so much alike. From this distance, Nathan could almost think Saya were Yuzuru with longer hair. “Shoma, I’m terrified.”
> 
> “Why you terrified? It is just Yuzuru’s _ onēsan _.”
> 
> “That’s exactly why I’m terrified.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This gets kind of heavy at the end... just a warning.
> 
> Also, the translations are at the end, too.
> 
> I mentioned this in the beginning but I moved World Championships to April 29th-May 5th. It was a choice I made to suit the storyline better to give the characters some incentive but just remember this!!! If you don't it may be confusing when the storyline develops.

> “You taught me the courage of stars before you left. How light carries on endlessly, even after death.”
> 
> — Saturn, by Sleeping At Last

* * *

December 2018

“Yuzuru…”

“Yes, Nathan?”

“I think I love you.”

“Aww, Nathan! I love you too!”

“No… I mean, I think I love you… in _ that _ way.”

“...what way?”

“I’m _ in love _ with you.”

“Oh.”

Nathan waited patiently, letting Yuzuru collect his thoughts. By now, he knew exactly how Yuzuru’s mind worked. When things were moving too fast, he always needed a few moments to process and work out what to say.

Internally, Nathan wanted to scream. He didn’t know why he blurted out the sudden confession. Yuzuru and him had been—as lewd as it may sound—_fucking _ since September, almost two months since Nathan started his choreography training with David at TCC. And of course Nathan had been the idiot to catch feelings all of a sudden. Of course he would go and start falling in love with someone who didn’t feel anything back.

“You don’t have to say anything. I know I’m being stupid. I don’t know what a person like you would see in me.”

Nathan picked up his gym bag from the locker room floor, standing up to leave Yuzuru alone. It seemed he needed a lot more time than usual to process his thoughts. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow for the evening session.”

Nathan left the locker room.

Later on that afternoon, after Nathan completed his online college courses and was laying starfish-style on his dorm bed, contemplating his existence, an urgent series of knocks sounded on his door.

The twentieth or so, forced Nathan out of bed. He unlocked the door and pulled it open, surprised but not unhappy to see Yuzuru standing there, eyes still stormy and lips pulled into a tight line like he was thinking very carefully about something.

“Yuzu? Are you oka— _ ah_!”

He was caught off-guard by the sudden push to his shoulders, slamming him against the wall next to the entryway. The front door and the lock both clicked shut before Nathan could even process what happened and then suddenly Yuzuru’s mouth was on his, pressing insistently at the seam of his lips.

Somehow, between the fingers intertwining with his own and Yuzuru’s full weight driving into him making him stumble further into his dorm, Nathan found himself losing his balance and tumbling onto his bed. And then Yuzuru was upon him once more, a wave of passion and lips and touches, crashing around Nathan and stealing his breath.

Nathan didn’t end up getting an answer. But with each kiss Yuzuru pressed to his body, with each slide of their bodies together, the way Yuzuru pushed him further and further over the edge, Nathan just let himself believe.

Foolishly believing. Naively trusting. 

_ I don’t know what a person like you would see in me. _

* * *

“On the fourth beat, you all split in half and you have two bars to skate to your positions for the last part of the choreography, got it? Group one splits to the right, group two to the left. Then the _ jeté _ to a twizzle.”

Nathan looked around at the skaters, studying their reactions carefully. When he was met with no looks of confusion or apprehension, he nodded.

“Alright, let’s do a quick run-through. I’ll be with group number one.”

The skaters took their positions, Nathan finding a random spot along the outside of the formation so that he would be out of peoples’ way.

“Five, six, seven, eight—”

Thankfully, the skaters seemed to like Nathan’s choreography. The music was some random remix of a high-charting pop song and the moves were fluid enough for the ice but still included some of the swagger of the original song. ‘Nathan-style’, as Yuzuru liked to call it.

“Split in one, two, three— two bars!”

Group one and two split in half, mirroring the moves on either side of the rink, flowing and ebbing like waves. The swizzles put a little too much pressure on Nathan’s knee, especially after a full day of demonstrating moves without a real break. 

When the last section of choreography came to an end, Nathan slipped out of the formation and skated along the edge of the rink, hoping his limp wasn’t too obvious to everyone else. It didn’t hurt too much, but putting pressure on his left knee did feel very uncomfortable and distracted him from his work. “Great job, guys! You all worked hard. Let’s take a five-minute break? Practice if you want, eat a snack, whatever.”

He turned around and made his way to one of the benches sitting around the entrance to the ice, groaning when his knee gently protested his movement.

“Are you okay?”

Nathan looked up, pleased to see Shoma standing there instead of some other skater that he didn’t know as well. “I’m fine, thank you. My leg just acts up sometimes. It’s no big deal.”

“_Ah_,” realization lit up in Shoma’s eyes. He bowed his head once as his body shifted to move down the hall. “I will be back. I have _ aisu pakku _ in my bag.”

“Wait, where are you—” he began, but Shoma already disappeared down the hallway, into one of the many corridors the stadium held. He sighed, eyes drifting down to his skates. “Alright, then.”

“Nathan!”

His eyes immediately shot up, standing so he could greet his former teammates. “Maia, Alex! I’m sorry I didn’t have the time to say hi this morning. I was already running behind schedule.”

“It’s fine, dude,” Alex said in that carefree tone of his, pulling Nathan into a quick hug that radiated warmth. “We understand. You’re a busy guy, now.”

“We heard you’ve already choreographed three pieces this week alone,” Maia leaned in with a smirk, a conspiratorial whisper playing at her words even as she pulled Nathan into a gentle embrace. Her eyes, meticulously lined with eyeliner and hints of eyeshadow, sparkled mischievously as she bumped her elbow against Nathan’s.

“Yeah. I’ve done the first few bars of Yuzuru’s new exhibition piece and a few sections of Shoma’s short program. We just finished it last night, actually,” Nathan responded, playing with the cuffs of his sweater, some random, brandless tracksuit jacket a friend had gifted him a few years back. 

Nathan hadn’t worn Nike since his career-ending injury was made public and Nike removed him from their sponsorship list. 

“You’re teaching this piece for Stars on Ice: USA, right?”

“I’ll probably make some adjustments since it’s a smaller group but it’s basically the same thing.”

“Cool! We’ll have a lot of time to film the other skaters learning the piece, then,” Maia exclaimed, fiddling with the camera bag slung over her shoulder before she smacked a hand over her mouth and turned to Nathan. “If we can film you teaching them…?” She let the question hang in the air.

Nathan fixed her and Alex with a beam. “Of course.”

“Nathan-kun,” Shoma’s voice caught Nathan’s attention. “_Kochira desu_.”

Shoma held out an ice pack with one hand, the other latched around a bewildered Javier’s wrist. Nathan took the ice pack but still managed to wrap his free arm around Javier’s shoulder and squeeze once in greeting. 

“Thanks, Sho. It’s nice to see you again, Javi.”

“I’m happy to see you too, Nathan. I’m glad you’re still skating.”

Nathan smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Kind of, I guess.”

“You couldn’t keep him off the ice if you handcuffed him to a bench!” Alex exclaimed, slapping a heavy hand onto Nathan’s back in a gesture that had Nathan laughing and scrambling for balance. Maia giggled and the two siblings shared a knowing glance,

“You sound like you’ve tried that before.”

“It was supposed to be a prank, but he somehow managed to escape.”

“No way!”

With the conversation effectively steered away from himself, Nathan took a few steps back to sit on the bench and press the ice pack to his aching knee. He felt Shoma sit down beside him, carefully and gently as if knocking into Nathan would tip him over. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Shoma. Thanks for the ice pack. We’ve been practicing for too long today, I guess.”

“I’m sorry to ask this,” Shoma sounded sheepish. “I know you have to ice your knee, but can you come to rink with me so I can… _ minaoshi _ the step sequence. I forgot right before twizzles.”

“You’re working really hard. You sure you want to concentrate so much on your new short program before the World Championships?” Nathan asked, wary of the upcoming competition.

“I know ‘Winter’ very good. I will be fine. Will you help?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nathan agreed, standing up to walk to the rink. “I’ll do it with you.”

“No, you don’t need to—” Shoma scrambled to pull Nathan back down on the bench. “Your knee is—”

“My knee is fine, Shoma. And besides,” Nathan bent down a little at the waist so he could lower his voice, the words meant for one set of ears only, “everyone is looking at me weirdly. With pity. I don’t want them to think I can’t do this anymore.”

Shoma looked extremely conflicted, torn between what he thought would be best for Nathan and what he knew Nathan needed to prove. Shoma seemed to come to a decision.

“_Hai_,” he sighed heavily, getting up to follow Nathan to the ice.

Even as Shoma ran through the steps and Nathan demonstrated the newer parts, Nathan could still feel a few of the skater’s gazes. He could hear their hushed whispers and know they were talking about him even though the words weren’t clear. 

Hopefully his glare didn’t meet their eyes. He would hate to ‘accidentally’ kill someone with what he knew was a death stare.

“Left foot first. Try to get deeper into your edges. Then the three-turn.”

Why could these people never give anything up? Nathan didn’t want their pity, their sad gazes, or their looks of concern. He was perfectly fine!

“Left. _ Hidari_. Good job. Try it from the beginning.”

Shoma began the step sequence and as he skated past Nathan, he joined into the choreography. Just like the previous night, Nathan hummed along to the violin melody, easing into the twizzles after the three-turn.

“Do not do the jumps, Nathan-kun.”

But when did Nathan ever listen?

Glide back, prep, triple axel.

Land, prep, quad toe. 

Land.

And suddenly Nathan was down on the ice.

Although the fall knocked him down onto his stomach, he rolled onto his back and sprawled across the ice like a starfish; something he saw Shoma do multiple times during their single choreography session together.

_ It was going so well_, he could only think as he pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes, bemoaning at his botched landing. He couldn’t really remember what went wrong. Usually right after takeoff, he could tell the outcome of the landing but this quad felt… perfectly fine…?

_ Maybe Raf and Brian were right_.

“Has-been.”

“Such a shame. He was so talented.”

“He’s not special anymore.”

Shoma skated back to Nathan and held out a hand to help him up off the ice. His eyes held intense concern even though his body language stayed causal and nonchalant. Before Shoma’s body blocked the majority of the skaters, Nathan caught sight of a few phones held up like cameras. Shoma was much more observant than his sleepy, lazy demeanor depicted.

Nathan couldn’t be more thankful.

“Good job,” Shoma mumbled.

_ Wasn’t that as far from the truth as possible _.

Back on his feet, he called all the skaters back to the ice. 

“Another run-through. Let’s go, guys. We have to finish this. Before Jeffrey gets here and decides to work on his numbers.”

* * *

“What if she doesn’t like me? I don’t think she’ll like me. Oh god, why am I so nervous?!”

“Calm down, Nathan-kun,” Shoma breathed out, his unruly bangs flying up a little. Nathan didn’t know if it was from the mellow breeze outside the arena or the huff of air Shona let out. “Saya-san likes everyone.”

“Does she know about me?”

“Everyone knows about you.”

“No—“ Nathan huffed, frustrated with himself for not being able to communicate his thoughts coherently in his mildly-panicked state. “I mean like— does she know about _ me and Yuzuru _.”

“Probably not,” Shoma shrugged. And yet Nathan didn’t see how Shoma could be so nonchalant and shrugging about the situation. Nathan was sure he might pop a vein or collapse from the stress. “But the two of you are _ akiraka _.”

“What does that mean?”

“_ Akira— _ clear? Obvious?”

_ Obvious _ ? Nathan didn’t really think so. As far as he could tell, there were only a select few that found out about Nathan and Yuzuru’s… _ interesting _ connection with one another, and they were mostly limited to Yuzuru’s training-mates, since Nathan spent a lot more time at The Cricket Club to choreograph and receive tips from Shae-Lynn if she was in the area. That meant only Javier, Brian, Jason, Junhwan, Evgenia, Romain and Mariah—because Nathan told them _ everything— _and now, apparently Shoma, knew about Yuzuru and Nathan.

Not too bad for almost… (Nathan quickly did the math) seven months of being ‘a thing’. Since August of 2018, when Nathan was already back on his feet and frequently visiting TCC for tips from David and Shae-Lynn on choreographing to the present, Nathan and Yuzuru had been intimate and exclusive, even though a formal title hadn’t been given to their arrangement.

“Not helping, Sho,” Nathan deadpanned.

“Sorry.”

He didn’t look the least bit apologetic. Nathan didn’t call him out on it. Not when his heart was pounding and his brain ran a thousand times faster than it should, like Nathan swallowed a week’s worth of caffeine and then a gallon of chocolate syrup. Plus a few cans of whipped cream. 

Not when Saya was _ right there _.

“Ohmygod I see her,” Nathan gasped out, easily recognizing Yuzuru’s older sister on the sidewalk, especially since they looked so much alike. From this distance, Nathan could almost think Saya were Yuzuru with longer hair. “Shoma, I’m terrified.”

“Why you terrified? It is just Yuzuru’s _ onēsan _.”

“That’s exactly why I’m terrified.”

Shoma just rolled his eyes, stepping forward to greet Saya with a cordial handshake and a bow. They exchanged a few words in Japanese that Nathan didn’t have the ability to comprehend and then Saya’s eyes were on him.

_ Oh god_.

“Hanyu-san,” Nathan welcomed with a bow. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Saya didn’t say anything for a few moments, even after Nathan straightened back up. Giving him a once-over, Saya then turned to Shoma.

“_Watashi wa kare ga chigau sōzō o shita_,” she said, face kept carefully blank.

Even though Nathan didn’t understand, he recognized the tone and could decipher the basic meaning by watching the shifting emotions on Shoma’s face. Nathan felt his heart drop into his chest at the blatant rejection. 

“I’ll… Shoma and I will take you inside the rink. We have an hour before dress rehearsals.”

Nathan gestured towards the open backstage door, waiting until Saya ducked in to follow her through. Somewhere in the hallways between the bathrooms and the dressing rooms, Nathan felt Shoma place a comforting hand on his shoulder, a gesture barely there but still offering silent support.

With a deep breath to fill his lungs and hopefully his confidence, Nathan trekked onwards.

“You have a very nice layback,” Nathan complimented Saya once they actually got to skate on the ice. “I don’t like doing spins that much when I practice so yours is better than mine will ever be.”

“I have skated since I was eight years old,” Saya said. “I have had a long time to practice.”

“Oh…” Nathan’s mind ran blank on what to say next. “Cool.”

_ God, why do I have to be so bad at social interactions_.

“You know, Yuzuru wanted to skate because of me,” Saya added as she continued skating, Nathan by her side but just far enough as to not be weird. Nathan nodded, having heard this story once or twice before from Yuzuru. “I took lessons and he wanted to take them too. Our mother thought his _ zensouku _ would be healed if he did physical sports.”

“_Zensouku… _ is that asthma?”

Saya nodded once. “_Hai_. Yuzuru calls me his ‘biggest inspiration’ now. I am the one who always supported his skating. Even when he wanted to give up, I told him to keep skating. I have been protective of him ever since he was born. I want him to stop skating and heal his injury, but I know stepping off the ice every day breaks his heart. I can’t tell him to stop. I want the best for my little brother. Do you know what that is like, Chen-san?”

“No, I—” Nathan stuttered, shaking his head frantically. He looked around, wary of the other skaters on the ice who could potentially hear the conversation. “I’m the youngest. I have four older siblings and I’ve always been the baby of the family. I started skating because of my brothers. After my injury, they were the ones who were adamant to get me back into my skates. I owe a lot to them.”

“So you don’t know what it is like,” Saya observed, a cryptic look on her face. She stared distantly at the space in front of her, seeing but not seeing at the same time. Nathan felt like she was ripping apart his life and criticizing every rough patch. Maybe she was, looking back on the memory. 

“Saya, I just wanted to—”

“I know about you and Yuzu-kun.”

Nathan surely didn’t expect that to come out of Saya’s mouth. He came to a halt right there in the middle of the ice, lungs suddenly devoid of air and his chest feeling hollow. He didn’t realize Yuzuru had told Saya—or _ anyone _ for that matter. Some of their close skater friends knew because they were just always around Nathan and/or Yuzuru, but _ family_? Nathan didn’t even think his parents knew he was no longer a virgin.

His next words came out slow and carefully articulated, afraid that any misunderstood syllable could set Saya’s temper off; or maybe even his own. “What do you mean?”

“You and Yuzuru. Your _ relationship_,” she spat out the last word as if it were poison, face contorting into a snarl that so deeply contrasted her Yuzu-like features.

Was this what Yuzuru would look like if he ever got angry at Nathan? With passionately furious eyes, just as passionate as Yuzuru was in everything that he does? With flaming red cheeks and a snarl glued onto his face?

God, now Nathan couldn’t stop seeing _ his _ face instead of Saya’s.

Nathan closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. “Can we talk somewhere else, Hanyu-san? Somewhere with less ears?”

He turned away without waiting for a response, pushing himself towards the rink’s exit and down a hallway with Saya trailing somewhere behind. His blade protectors somehow made it onto his blades—Nathan wasn’t sure he was the one who actually did it, his hands trembled too much by his sides to be capable of doing any real task.

He made it to the largest dressing room—the one all the cast members ate in which thankfully seemed to be empty—closing the door behind Saya once she stepped in.

“My relationship with Yuzuru. What about it?”

“Don’t act this way, Nathan.”

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yuzuru cannot hide anything from me,” Saya explained, disdained as she did so. “When he talks of you—and he does so very frequently—there are stars in his eyes. And that is the reason I decided to come here today.”

“Why? To meet me? To make sure I don’t have any bad intentions?”

“No,” she said simply, shrugging, though the contempt still shone through her every expression and gesture. It appeared to be rolling off her in waves. “I know you do not.”

“Then why? Why come here and make me freak out and nearly out me and your brother to the entire skating community? We’re not even a couple, you know? Whatever’s going on between us doesn’t have a label or a name.”

“Because I don’t think you are right for him, Nathan.”

Something shattered in Nathan’s chest.

“W-what?”

“I do not think you are the right person for Yuzuru,” Saya repeated, with absolutely no apologetic feelings laced into her voice. “I know what type of person you are, and I do not want your type around my brother.”

“Am I not good enough for you?” Nathan managed to choke out, on the brink of a panic attack. He hoped Saya didn’t notice the waver in his voice. He didn’t want her to find another flaw to pick at, another imperfection to widen and insult.

“You’re not good enough for _ him_,” she emphasized, cutting deeper with each syllable. “You’re a quitter.”

Nathan hadn’t heard that word in a while.

“You give up on things when they are hard. And for the two of you—two superstar skating champions, two _ men_, two _ very _ different people—things will always be hard. And when you eventually give up on my brother, I will have to pick up the pieces.”

Nathan tried his best to keep his composure, but with every single one of Saya’s words, it chipped a little more at his perfectly-crafted facade. 

“You said in an interview once that skating is your life. What gave you happiness, your _ ikigai_. After your injury, you left the sport without even trying another competition. If you and Yuzuru do get in a relationship, what will you do when things get rough? Will you leave, too? Will you give up?” Saya didn’t seem to care that Nathan was on the verge of shattering into a million tiny pieces. She just kept pressing harder and harder with her words, cutting closer and closer to the bone each time. 

Saya took one single step closer to Nathan, face full of malice and hurt and everything Nathan wouldn’t want to see on Yuzuru’s face. In that moment, the fact that Saya and Yuzuru looked so alike was like a curse to Nathan. To see a face so visually similar to Yuzuru’s with such potent anger directed towards _ him_.

“You’re a coward,” Saya spat out, but all Nathan could see was Yuzuru saying the exact same thing, eyes hardened with disdain and pure hatred. “You gave up. You did that.”

She stepped back, shaking her head like a disappointed mother, reaching for the door. “You are a failure, Nathan Chen.”

“I _ know _ that,” Nathan wailed, nearly losing his composure. “I live with it every day. I see skaters doing tricks and jumps and I want to do them too. But I can’t.”

“Of course you can,” Saya said, letting the disgust drip from her voice. “You are just scared to fail.”

Nathan leaned his weight against the wall, feeling as if his balance on the precarious blade protectors would soon collapse. 

“You are like skating to Yuzuru. You hurt him but he cannot leave. I cannot tell Yuzuru to leave. So I am telling you. Yuzuru can’t have distractions before the World Championships. It is for the best, Nathan.”

And with that, she left the room, leaving the dressing room door open even as she stomped down the hallway to the stadium seats. Reaching out a shaky hand, Nathan gently shut the door to give himself some privacy.

As the door clicked shut, his knees finally gave out and he slumped against the doorframe, chest heaving with sobs that seemed to engulf his entire body, shoulders trembling with the force of his emotion. Swell after swell of pure resignation and disappointment and helplessness hit his frame, knocking him down until he sat in a heap on the ground, the doorframe his only source of stability and strength.

Even though his lungs were heaving in air by the liter, Nathan still felt like he was suffocating. His stomach churned and he suppressed the urge to vomit right there on the floor next to where he sat. The floor rolled like ocean waves underneath him, unrelenting and pulling him under deeper and deeper, crushing the air out of his chest in misshapen bubbles, throwing him against the rocks that glinted like knives in the water.

Voices swam around his head in that dizzying little rollercoaster of theirs. But this time, a new voice was added to the mix.

_ Has-been. _

_ And the worst part is? It’s all your fault, Nathan. _

_ You may have to retire… _

_ He’s not special anymore. _

_ Don’t let me hold you back. _

_ Such a shame. He was so talented. _

_ You’re a coward. You gave up. You did that. _

_ You are like skating to Yuzuru. You hurt him. _

_ You are a failure, Nathan Chen. _

_ It is for the best, Nathan_.

Just like the relentless tumble of the ocean, the voices just wouldn’t stop. Nathan found himself about to drown.

Why could he only see Yuzuru saying those things?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. aisu pakku : "ice pack" in romanji  
\- I have no explanation
> 
> 2\. kochira desu : "here you go/here you are"  
\- I'm pretty sure... I didn't check before posting whoops
> 
> 3\. minaoshi : "review"  
\- I was thinking Shoma's English sounded a little too fluent so I changed some of the more "advanced" words to Japanese, like what I do with Korean and Tagalog lmao
> 
> 4\. hai : "yes/okay"
> 
> 5\. hidari : "left" (as in left-hand side)
> 
> 6\. akiraka : "obvious"
> 
> 7\. onēsan : "older sister"
> 
> 8\. watashi wa kare ga chigau sōzō o shita : "I imagined him differently/I thought he would be different"  
\- I was inspired by pacific rim's Mako Mori lmao
> 
> 9\. zensouku : "asthma"
> 
> 10\. ikigai : "reason for living/reason to wake up in the morning" (no direct translation)  
\- roll credits lol  
\- Nathan still doesn't know what ikigai means oof
> 
> other notes:  
\- I keep mentioning ocean waves and you'll see why in a little bit  
\- That first part with Nathan and Yuzuru? My heart. broken. while writing it.  
\- Saya is kinda a bitch I'm sorryyy... I'm sure she's a great person in real life but I just needed an antagonist who's... also... not really an antagonist...??  
\- There are ten chapters! I've finished the detailed plotline and am currently starting chapter nine and editing chapters 5-8. Each will be released weekly on Friday/Saturday (depending on where you are in the world) ^.^  
\- I'm also planning my new figure skating fic because I have no life. I'm leaning towards a Yuzusho or a story about Yuzuru and a new character (I'm thinking about making it his younger sister, who also happens to be a top figure skater)  
\- Anyways, comment! LoVe Me pLEaSe~~


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He’ll get back to the way he was,” Yuzuru promised, more to himself than to Javier as he laid a heavy hand on Pooh-san’s snout.
> 
> To see the stars in Nathan’s eyes again, to see Nathan dance across the ice and leap through the air with ease, to finally have Nathan return to what he loves the most; Yuzuru would do anything. 
> 
> Anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> multi-lingual translations this time my dudes! 
> 
> anyways, don't forget that I changed when the world championships are! Instead of happening early-mid march, I have moved them to april 29-may 5 (plus a few practice days beforehand). it's very important to remember this!!
> 
> What pairing do you guys wanna see next? Yuzusho, another Zuzuthan, maybe an OC pairing? I'm already working on my next fic after this (it is about Yuzuru and his OC little sister) or if you guys want me to publish the first chapter before making a decision thats totally fine too lol

> “It’s okay if you can’t catch a breath. You can take the oxygen straight out of my chest.”
> 
> — Two, by Sleeping At Last

* * *

“_ Yuzuru-Hyung! _ Your handphone is ringing.”

Yuzuru wished he picked up more Korean from his time in PyeongChang and Seoul. Maybe then he would be able to understand what the hell ‘_Hyung_’ meant and why so many of his Korean fans called him ‘_Oppa_’. But then again, he probably wouldn’t have been able to concentrate long enough to learn anything apart from the basics, since he was so loopy with painkillers (but he hoped Jun would be willing to teach him one day).

Yuzuru checked the clock hanging up above one of the windows… a few minutes before his manager came to pick him up for the night. Might as well end his session a little earlier. His ankle felt a little more sore than usual, anyway. Hopefully, he would be able to hold up until Worlds in a few weeks.

“_Gomapda__, _Jun,” he called out, skating past Junhwan to mess up his long hair, even as Jun yelped and ducked to avoid Yuzuru’s hands. Yuzuru chuckled and left the ice to find his things laying on one of the benches by the entrance to the ice. Pooh-san got a rub to the face as Yuzuru walked by and picked up his phone. His lock screen showed three missed calls from the contact name ‘Javiii(◕ω◕✿)’. Just as he was about to call back, his phone vibrated and Javier’s face—a meme face, of course—popped up on his screen.

Curious, Yuzuru swiped to answer the call.

“Javi? You’ve called me four times already. I just finishing up practice. What is wrong?”

“We are about to start dress rehearsals. In like ten minutes.” Javier sounded breathless, almost as much as Yuzuru felt after his long evening practice session. That piqued Yuzuru’s interest a little.

“So?” Yuzuru collapsed against the bench, using a single hand to undo the laces on his skates. He lifted the inflections of his voice to playfully tease his best friend. “Go get ready, then.”

“Shoma and the Shibutanis just calmed Nathan down from a panic attack in one of the dressing rooms.”

Yuzuru sat up straighter, all but abandoning his mission to take off his boots. He shifted his phone to his dominant hand, eyebrows lacing together with concern. “What? Why? What happened?”

“I was hoping you’d know the answer.”

For some reason, his answer frustrated Yuzuru.

“Javi, I am in Toronto, how would I—”

“He left the ice with Saya ‘to talk’. A few minutes later, Saya’s back in the arena looking angry, Shoma’s trying to get Nathan to breathe properly, Maia’s nearly in tears herself, and Alex is freaking out because he doesn’t know what to do. You fill in the blanks, _ mi amigo _.”

Well, Yuzuru did suggest that Saya should meet Nathan. As soon as he came up in conversation, though, Saya immediately expressed her emotions about the younger skater; how he should have been able to skate again, how he was weak-minded compared to Yuzuru, how he didn’t have a real passion for the sport.

Even after Yuzuru denied all Saya’s claims, she still stuck to her beliefs.

She _ did _ agree to meet Nathan, however...

All the air in Yuzuru’s lungs left in an instant. “She didn’t…”

“I think she did, Yuzu.”

Suddenly desperate for an answer, Yuzuru clutched the phone closer, as if the pressure alone could make Javier spill any secrets he might’ve been harboring. “Did you hear anything? About what she said?”

Javier let out a heavy breath, voice resigned and defeated in a way that he only felt a few times a year. “I only saw the aftermath, and that—”

“—wasn’t good,” Yuzuru finished for him, a deep sigh playing in the back of his throat. He swallowed his saliva harshly, mouth suddenly feeling dry. He wanted to scream or yell or fly all the way to Japan. But that wouldn’t do Nathan or Yuzuru any good. He resigned to asking: “Nathan is fine now, right?”

“I think so. He’s with Alex. Maia’s calling Rafael or his family, whoever answers first,” Javier listed off, humming under his breath as he thought. The panic in Yuzuru’s chest simmered down to a nervous bubble: barely there but still recognizable and still nagging quite intently. “I think Shoma went to go find Nathan’s gym bag in the men’s locker room in case there were anxiety pills in there or something.”

Of course _Shoma_ would be the sensible one in a situation like this. If Yuzuru weren’t there to take care of Nathan, at least he could trust his friends to do it for him.

“He keeps them in the left pocket, right underneath where his name is written in thread… embroidered. Make him take two of them. No more, no less,” Yuzuru said reflexively, chewing on his nails.

“...and you know that because…?”

“It is where we agreed to keep emergency things. My asthma inhaler is in the pocket closest to my name, too.” Yuzuru made a vague gesture with his hand even though Javier couldn’t see him.

“I know that, you told me,” Javier mumbled, suddenly sounding embarrassed through the scratchy cell microphone. “I just didn’t know you’d know where Nathan’s things are… let alone how much to give him.”

Yuzuru felt like an explanation was warranted.

“He got them—panic attacks—a lot when he first moved to the Senior Circuit. They stopped after a while. And then they came back once he got back on his feet after the Olympics. His medications changed a lot and he forgets, so I keep track for him.”

“And you found out before or after the Olympics?”

The memory swept Yuzuru away before he could even think.

_ ‘Nathan-san, look at me,’ Yuzuru pleaded, clutching desperately at the young teen gasping and sobbing on the floor of the locker room. Nathan was mumbling something between his wails, refusing to look his Senior skater in the eye, clutching at his throat when his lungs refused to cooperate. ‘Breathe, kudasai.’ _

“Before the Olympics,” Yuzuru responded, distantly. “At one of Brian’s camps right after his hip injury, there were articles circulating about him. I found him in the locker room… and…”

“Anyways,” Javier steered the conversation back onto topic, sensing the uncomfortable subject about to be breached, “that’s not the point. Nathan seemed pretty hurt by whatever Saya said. I was just hoping you’d…”

“I’ll talk to my _ anē… _ Definitely.”

Like there was any doubt. Yuzuru loved and respected his older sister, and especially appreciated the lengths she went to protect him but he had to draw the line somewhere. Hurting someone like Nathan—someone nearly as important to him as Saya was—he couldn’t let her get away with that, even if it was ‘for your own benefit’, as Saya would say. Yuzuru just didn’t see it in that light.

Both the Hanyus were go-getters, but Saya was so in a different way. She seemed to lack the tact and delicacy Yuzuru tried to keep within his words and never felt any sympathy towards the victims of her words. She plowed towards her goal, uncaring of whoever she knocked down on the way there.

“Great,” Javier breathed out, sounding much more relieved than before. His usual cheeriness steeped itself into his bones. “It’s just weird seeing Nathan like that, you know? Before the Olympics, he was always so happy and sure of himself. And then after that, even though he was choreographing, he still seemed empty somehow. When the two of you got together, I thought he would be alright again. And he was, for a while. It seems the empty side is back.”

Yuzuru nodded and dropped his chin. He resumed undoing his boots, even though his mind flashed through images of Nathan; a younger, confident Nathan, who made jokes about one day beating Yuzuru and dared him to complete the quad axel first. A Nathan who told stories and painted pictures with his voice, then bringing the same stories to life with his skating. A Nathan who could simply laugh and summon rainbows into the air, like little halos around his smile. 

Nathan who was unstoppable like an ocean. Fierce like a storm.

_ What happened to you, Nathan-kun? _

“He’ll get back to the way he was,” Yuzuru promised, more to himself than to Javier as he laid a heavy hand on Pooh-san’s snout.

To see the stars in Nathan’s eyes again, to see Nathan dance across the ice and leap through the air with ease, to finally have Nathan return to what he loves the most; Yuzuru would do anything. 

Anything.

“So, I’m coming back to Toronto for a little bit, a few days after Stars on Ice ends.”

“Really? I will take you to our favorite Korean BBQ place with Jun and Jason then…”

* * *

Even four days after his panic attack, anxiety and shame still churned in Nathan’s stomach. It seemed to be alive, eating away at his endurance and patience and everything else that could have possibly benefitted Nathan on his short trip to Japan. Shoma and the Shibutanis seemed to understand and gave him a wide berth, keeping anyone away who was about to disturb Nathan during his meditation before shows. Nathan couldn’t thank them enough.

Even after getting off the plane in Toronto, in the taxi to The Cricket Club, Saya’s words echoed in Nathan’s mind. He couldn’t sleep without feeling each of her insults like a blow to the chest. 

Nathan was always told growing up that words couldn’t hurt him. But with Saya’s truthful statements pummeling him like a veteran boxer against a punching bag, it was hard to believe. Her words hurt.

“Thanks,” Nathan mumbled, taking back his credit card and stepping out of the taxi, clutching his trusty gym bag close to his chest. The driver came around the other side before Nathan could even process it, and then his luggage was right there on the sidewalk next to him. 

He arrived sometime in the late morning, after everyone had already arrived at the club and just before most would leave for lunch. No one was outside, save for a few joggers on the far side of the building and everything was quiet. 

The birds were chirping.

Nathan hadn’t stopped to listen to the birds chirp in a long while. Probably not since his time in physical therapy, in between demanding sessions, getting air outside his physician’s office. The birds in Toronto sounded different than LA. The air smelled different, too. Less salty-ocean air, and more fresh piney.

Steeling himself to finally come face-to-face with Yuzuru again, Nathan latched onto the handle of his suitcase and trudged forward, wishing for the gentle crunch of snow underneath his feet instead of his sneakers on the concrete. Spring always came at a cost; the cost of the crystalline snow. It never snowed in LA, hence why Nathan loved winter in Toronto so much.

He waved absentmindedly at the rink’s desk lady, quickly taking the turn into the locker rooms to set down his luggage and gym bag. The spot where he kept his things against the far wall—since he didn’t have a locker at TCC—was still empty, as if he never left to begin with. 

Putting off getting ready for practice, Nathan haphazardly threw down his things and made his way into the rink, snatching up his gym bag and leaving the locker room as quietly as possible, afraid to disturb the peace even with no one present to witness it. Thankfully, he didn’t pass any skaters as he made his way down the hallway.

And then he was in the ice rink, hidden by the shadows and able to watch without catching anyone’s attention. Disengaged from the scene before him, Nathan could observe Yuzuru skate like it was simply a movie.

Yuzuru practiced his new exhibition piece, the very same one Nathan helped to choreograph. The piece was undoubtedly sad—the same type of dragging, sluggish sorrow that never seemed to work with Yuzuru’s personality. The type of sad that could only be brought to life in Yuzuru’s skating, through meticulous hours of crafting a character, after months of practice to make the program believable.

This time, however, Yuzuru perfectly realized the character. His face was dark with a deep, hidden sorrow and guilt. His body realized every crescendo through movement, swelling in time with the music and letting the melody carry him into a spin, low and small and ashamed. 

All the other skaters left the ice, just as entranced as Nathan by the display of skating prowess and stunned by the amount of emotion Yuzuru expelled in what must have been his first full run-through of his exhibition program.

Whispered touches of his fingertips, reaching out and breathing life through his entire body. Spins that seemed to suck in time and turn it inside out. Step sequences that matched perfectly with each strike of a chord on the piano, light and airy but punching deep with emotion; paired with jumps that spawned from pure mourning and regret—explosions of a broken heart made visible on ice.

_ Who made you this way, _Nathan wanted to ask; wanted to skate up to him on the ice and wrap Yuzuru up in golden threads of warmth and happiness and light until he couldn’t tell where the sunlight ended and Yuzuru began. _ Who hid your smile behind the clouds? _

_ You did. You did this to him._

The Saya in Nathan’s head wouldn’t shut up.

And then the music ended, pulling a gasp out of Nathan’s breath as Yuzuru slowed his spin in time with the piano, coming to a stop. There was no fanfare; no triumphant smirk, dramatic spread arms, a glittery costume, or even a smile. 

This was simply Yuzuru, standing on the ice like a normal human being would stand on the sidewalk. Dressed in normal clothes and exhausted like a normal person would be. Feeling emotions just like a normal human would. A fallen god, reduced to a mortal.

And even after the applause ended and all the skaters went back onto the ice, Yuzuru still stood there, staring down at the ice as if it would answer his questions, looking lost and confused and all too overwhelmed.

Nathan thought it was an appropriate time to look away. He managed to get his boots on in a dark corner of the rink, heaving himself back onto his feet just as most of the junior skaters left the rink to train their rotations on dry land.

Stepping onto the ice seemed much too underwhelming, especially after seeing such a performance from Yuzuru. This cold, unforgiving surface couldn’t be the thing Yuzuru glided across. He was dancing on clouds and balancing on stars, not simply skating on ice.

Nathan skated a few laps around the perimeter of the rink, letting his body slowly warm up despite the chill of the room. He heard the scrape of the ice before he felt the presence by his side. 

“Nathan,” the greeting came curtly and much too formal for who Yuzuru was as a person. 

“Yuzuru,” he responded in turn, not really knowing what to say. 

He didn’t turn to look Yuzuru in the eye. He was too afraid to see the same hatred and contempt he saw in Saya’s.

“You’re back in Toronto.”

“I am.”

“You—” Yuzuru cut himself off with a displeased grunt, biting at the skin of his lip in frustration. Nathan’s one-to-two word answers were quite worrisome. “Will you come over to my house later? After my dance class tonight?”

Nathan didn’t immediately answer, much to Yuzuru’s concern. He began to turn away and retract his hand before Yuzuru gripped him a little tighter, stepping closer.

“I think we need to talk,” Yuzuru continued, gentler this time.

“What’s there to talk about?”

Nathan’s voice stood stagnant, monotonous. Lifeless.

A whole list of words that weren’t ‘_Nathan’ _ . Words that should never be associated with ‘_Nathan’_.

“A lot of things. Just—” Yuzuru wrapped his fingers around Nathan’s wrist, slowing their momentum to a stop. He pressed his index finger to Nathan’s pulse point, reminding himself that, _ yes, this is Nathan. He is really here with you. _ “Please? Trust me, _ kudasai_?”

It felt like a year before Nathan’s gaze drifted upwards to meet Yuzuru’s, eyes full of reluctance.

Why did it hurt so much to see Nathan so reserved; so quiet and hunched over like he was trying to take up as little space as possible? What happened to the firecracker on ice; the excitable puppy that graced Nathan’s soul day and night?

Nathan’s lips pressed together in a tight line before he answered.

“I trust you,” he said, sounding a little more like himself, even though he answered meekly.

Yuzuru nodded, understanding that was the best answer he was going to get and skated away.

* * *

“Make yourself comfortable.”

Nathan didn’t move from the entranceway, standing stiff and uncomfortably by the closed front door. His entire body tensed as if he were about to bolt through the door and make a run for his car. The muscles in his face looked unbearably taught, strenuously held in place by Nathan in an attempt to keep his emotions and thoughts at bay.

Yuzuru sighed, tentatively lacing his fingers with Nathan’s and leading the younger skater to the couch.

He didn’t miss the way Nathan seemed to sway precariously, nearly losing his footing even on the dry ground.

“We have to talk, Nathan,” he said, playing with the cuff of Nathan’s jacket.

“I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.”

At least Nathan was feeling well enough to be stubborn, even if it frustrated Yuzuru to hell and back in that moment. Yuzuru frowned, searching Nathan’s eyes for some sort of answer; the truth he might’ve been concealing so fiercely. 

_ What really happened with Saya, _ Yuzuru wanted to ask, if only Nathan would answer truthfully. He knew that in order to get an accurate retelling of the story, he would have to trick Nathan into telling the truth.

“Javi called me a few days ago,” Yuzuru said, studying Nathan’s reactions. “He told me you had a panic attack in one of the dressing rooms before dress rehearsal.”

Nathan’s eyes turned downwards, fire rising to his cheeks. To any normal person, it would just appear that Nathan felt ashamed; embarrassed to show a weakness and admit to being imperfect and flawed. But to Yuzuru’s trained eyes, he could see the apprehension that tumbled off Nathan’s trembling hands. He could feel the waver in Nathan’s voice like it left his own vocal cords. He could see the sway in Nathan’s stance like ocean waves were hitting him head-on.

“Just the aftermath of a bad dream. Nothing important.”

_ You’re lying_.

“Shoma, Maia, and Alex helped me out of it… Shoma and Javier found my anxiety pills somehow. I’m okay now, I promise. All better.”

_ You’re still lying to me_.

“And Saya? You were with her that morning. How did she react?”

“I had the panic attack after she left the ice. She didn’t see it happen, thank god.”

Yuzuru furrowed his eyebrows, dropping his hands. “You do not have to lie for my sake, you know. Saya can go overboard sometimes.”

Nathan’s eyes, full of mortification and guilt snapped up to meet his. The dark circles under his eyes became infinitely more apparent now that he was meeting Yuzuru’s gaze head-on. In that moment, he looked so frail and vulnerable: his cheeks were a touch sunken in which meant he wasn’t eating as well as he should be, his shoulders hung with a great weariness that affected his perfect ballet-posture, and his eyes bore remnants of the nightmares he talked of. 

“You knew?” He looked like he was about to throw up or something equally as grotesque. “Oh, god—”

“Who do you think told Javi where to find the pills?”

“You knew the entire time? And I was trying so hard to hide it, I—”

Nathan’s chin dropped back down to his chest, a defeated whimper escaping his lips. Yuzuru caught his chin with his fingers, raising his face back up and cooing at the sight of tears beginning to track down Nathan’s face.

“No— _ don’t— _ stop that,” Nathan attempted to push his hands away and hide his face.

“Hey, hey, _ no_,” Yuzuru comforted, wiping away the stray tears with his thumbs. “It’s okay. There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Panic attacks happen. Right?”

Nathan nodded, his face still firmly held in Yuzuru’s hands. He turned his cheek to nuzzle gently into one of Yuzuru’s palms, seeking comfort in the soft touch. His bottom lip wobbled and Yuzuru felt the strange urge to kiss it away.

“They’re still embarrassing. I don’t like feeling this pathetic around you.”

“You are not pathetic, Nathan.”

Nathan met Yuzuru’s gaze with the sort of look that said ‘really?’ in a much-too-sassy tone. Nathan swiped away some of his falling tears, just adding more redness to his cheeks. “I’m crying into your arms right now like some helpless princess. I _ am _ kind of pathetic.”

“At least I get to be your Prince Charming.”

“Smooth,” Nathan chuckled despite his low mood, raising his hands so he mirrored Yuzuru’s position, palms cupped around each other’s cheeks. He tried to ignore the heat rising to his cheeks, the same thing that happened each time Yuzuru attempted to flirt with him. He wondered if Yuzuru knew just how much he affected him. (Judging by the shit-eating grin on his face, he totally did.) “You’re really the best.”

“Am I really?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Then why do you never tell me anything?” Yuzuru pressed, holding Nathan’s cheeks firmer in his grasp so that the younger skater couldn’t look away. “You should not have lied for Saya, you know. What she did was wrong.”

“I don’t want to be the reason you’re angry at her,” Nathan whined, dipping his weight forward to rest his head against Yuzuru’s collarbone. “She just wants the best for you and I don’t want to come between you two…” His spine went rigid as if just realizing something horrific. “Oh my god, I shouldn’t be here.”

“No,” Yuzuru pleaded, pulling Nathan to him tighter as if sheer willpower alone could hold him there. “You won’t come between me and my sister. She’s just being dumb and not seeing the whole screen.”

“The whole— what?”

“When you— she’s not understanding all…”

“She’s not ‘getting the picture’?”

“Yes! I knew that I swear.”

Nathan huffed out a disbelieving laugh against Yuzuru’s neck, mumbling words against Yuzuru’s pulse point. “You’re impossible.”

Yuzuru beamed down at Nathan, relishing in the tiny chuckle and turn of Nathan’s emotions. He ran his fingers through Nathan’s curls, pressing their bodies closer together to potentially offer even the tiniest bit of consolation from his grief. Nathan caved at the gentle pressure and shifted closer, draping his thighs over Yuzuru’s.

“So are you,” Yuzuru shot back, rocking their bodies back and forth as he continued to comb through Nathan’s hair, pressing feather-light kisses to the crown of his head whenever he felt like it. “You are supposed to tell me these things.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

Nathan’s hands slipped under Yuzuru’s open windbreaker to wrap his arms loosely around Yuzuru’s waist just to feel closer; to feel the warmth of Yuzuru’s body against his own skin, instead of the warmth generated from the outer layer of the windbreaker that felt so synthetic and alien. Yuzuru’s hands were always cold, but his body was never. Nathan said it was because his heart worked too hard and too hot all the time warming up his entire body.

Nathan yawned before his next words, entire body tensing and stretching in Yuzuru’s arms.

“Don’t be angry at me, then?”

Yuzuru’s heart nearly broke. _ Nathan thought I would be angry at him_?

“Never,” Yuzuru promised fervently, arms tightening just so that Nathan could feel the pressure change and never doubt his words.

“Yuzuru…”

“Yeah?”

“Are you disappointed in me?”

Yuzuru sputtered. “W-what? Why would I be disappointed in you?”

Nathan shrugged. “For being weak. For giving up on my career.”

“I don’t think I am disappointed,” Yuzuru explained, trying to collect his complex thoughts. He ran his free hand up and down Nathan’s spine, fingers lightly brushing the apex of each bone in an attempt to keep Nathan grounded. “I know you could go back to skating if you wanted to. You have the talent and the drive. But you are _ not _ weak at all… I do want to ask you something, though?”

“...yeah?”

“What did Saya say to you that made you have a panic attack?”

Nathan’s body turned rigid, tensing in Yuzuru’s grasp. “Nothing.”

“You need to let me know why—”

“Yuzuru, I can’t— I don’t want— you…” Nathan stuttered, beginning to pull away from Yuzuru in his frantic state of mind.

“Relax,” Yuzuru prompted, rubbing the agitation out of Nathan’s shoulders with his prodding fingers. “And I know it is not nothing, but I’m not going to ask because I can tell you are uncomfortable. But you will tell me, someday.”

Nathan hummed in acknowledgment and gratitude but didn’t offer a response. Tired out from a combination of his own tumultuous emotions, the previous week’s back-to-back ice shows, and a lack of proper caffeine since the plane ride, Nathan’s eyes began to fall shut, letting Yuzuru take more of his weight.

Yuzuru immediately took notice, resting his cheek against the top of Nathan’s head with a mock-offended scoff. 

“Are you seriously about to fall asleep? Am I that boring?”

“Hmmm… jetlag’s fault… not you.”

“You are horrible,” Yuzuru teased, but it came out more fondly than he had been anticipating, surprising himself. 

Nathan hummed again, beginning to finally drift off. Yuzuru felt the tension of just simply being awake begin to seep out of Nathan’s muscles, entire body becoming lax. “But you love me for it…”

His breathing evened out immediately afterwards.

Yuzuru traces his eyes over Nathan’s relaxed face. His long eyelashes, tanned skin, the curls gently sloping over his forehead. The breaths that slowly pulled in and out of his lungs between his lips that Yuzuru suddenly had the urge to taste.

_ I do_, Yuzuru thought. _ I do love you._

If only he had the courage to say it out loud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. yuzuru-hyung : "Hyung" means "older brother" in Korean and it is used by males to respectively refer to a brother or close friend who is older than they are  
\- Korean woot woot
> 
> 2\. oppa : similar to "Hyung", this is a respective term used by females to refer to an older brother or a close male friend who is older than they are  
\- I had to sneak this in lol im sorry  
\- oppa gangnam style
> 
> 3\. gomapda : a very casual way to say "thank you" in Korean  
\- Yuzuru said "kamsahamnida" after his free (or it might've been both his free and short) program at the olympics but "kamsahamnida" is waaay too formal for Yuzuru to use with Junhwan sooooooo yeah
> 
> 4\. mi amigo : "my friend" in Spanish  
\- i wonder if Javier actually says this to Yuzuru, who probably can't speak three words of spanish lol
> 
> 5\. kudasai : "please" in Japanese
> 
> 6\. anē : "my older sister" in japan, when talking about her to someone else  
\- Japanese terms regarding familial relationships really confuse me  
\- like there's "anē" and "nē-san" and "onē-san" and "anēki"  
\- im v confused
> 
> other notes:  
\- the entire work is complete! there are ten chapters and about 45k words total!  
\- i know i'm the author and all but during that last bit, i was just like "nnOO NATHAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST TELL HIM WHAT HAPPENED FOR REAL" and then i got sad  
\- this ended kind of happy but trust me, it is FAR from a resolution lol  
\- think of it this way. we're at five chapters right now. there are ten total (nine actually, ten is just the epilogue) but that means a WHOLE LOTTA TENSION is about to be built up before it snaps very dramatically  
\- this is fun  
\- i like being an evil author  
\- eah likes being an evil editor, too  
\- grrrrr eah was really mean about my grammar this chapter ;-; this is abuse help  
\- anyways there is a happy ending because im a sucker for sappy moments oof lol  
\- because i have no happiness in real life ;-;  
\- im jk jk  
\- love y'all and see you next week!
> 
> send me your thoughts or comment :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Off to the side, Nathan’s phone began to vibrate. He glanced at the screen, wincing when Yuzuru’s silly contact picture greeted him. He picked it up, gently tracing Yuzuru’s smiling face as his phone continued to ring with an incoming call. When the picture disappeared, he held down the ‘off’ button on his phone, swiping to shut down the device.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> japanese translations at the end notes!
> 
> i'll remind y'all about the changes to the world championships schedule again. just check the notes in previous chapters to see what i mean if you forgot...
> 
> keep your hands, feet, and legs, inside the rollercoaster at all times. tissue boxes are in the compartment in front of you. enjoyyyyyy ;)

> “Hold out your hand and color me like that red sunset, so that I won’t lose myself”
> 
> — Colors, by Day6

* * *

“Nathan! Look over here! Can we ask you a few questions?”

“Nathan Chen! Are you returning to competitive figure skating?”

“Have your injuries from the Olympics completely healed?”

“Nathan Chen!”

The swarm of paparazzi right outside the arrival gate stunned Nathan. He quickly dropped the sunglasses sitting on top of his head down onto his nose and tucked his chin to his chest, hoping that the media wouldn’t be brave enough to get in his way before he could find a way home.

He was suddenly very concerned; LAX was an absolutely huge airport, with thousands of people leaving and arriving each hour. The paparazzi hadn’t been following Nathan since his injury became old news—after he announced he would be retiring, his celebrity status plummeted into non-existence. Why were these people so interested in him all of a sudden?

“No questions today, please,” a voice, accompanied by a gentle hand around his shoulders said. 

“Alice,” he breathed out, letting the relief seep into his bones, clutching his sister’s hoodie to reassure himself of her reality. “Thank god.”

“Janice is waiting in the car. Tony and Colin will guide us there.”

A few familiar heads popped out of the crowd and pushed their way through the many cameras. Then, Nathan’s two brothers were flanking him, shielding him from the lenses and flashes. Tony plopped a cap onto Nathan’s head with barely a glance. Nathan reminded himself that while his all-pleasing nature and easygoing personality tended to have him doting all his older siblings, he was still their little brother, and they would all trek through hell for him.

“Why are they here?” he asked his sister over the reporters’ questions, pushing Tony’s hat further down over his face.

“You’ll see when we get home!” Tony exclaimed, taking Nathan’s gym bag and slinging it over his shoulder. Colin nodded and swiped Nathan’s luggage so that he wouldn’t be carrying anything. “Mom and Dad are waiting there.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

Surrounded by his siblings, the car came into view faster than Nathan anticipated. Janice’s familiar white SUV with the big dent on the passenger side’s door probably wouldn’t look good on camera, but to hell with it. At least the dust-written ‘hi’ on the back windshield had been washed off by the recent rain.

Alice opened the door for Nathan, while Colin moved to open the trunk for Nathan’s suitcase. Tony took shotgun, as always.

“Scoot over, baby brother,” Alice ordered, crowding into the car behind Nathan. Colin shut the trunk and came around the other side, trapping Nathan in the middle seat. 

“Why am I always in the middle?” he whined as Janice pulled out of the pickup area. “It’s not fair.”

“You’re the youngest and therefore have the least power,” Janice explained, slowly, as if she were talking to a little kid.

“It’s all politics,” Colin chimed in, knocking his elbow into Nathan’s side. 

“Politics my ass!” He exclaimed, knocking Colin right back. Colin and he began to trade hits, giggling the entire time. The other siblings watched on fondly as the two babies of the family fought. “You just want an excuse to bully me!”

“Don’t curse, Nathan!” Alice scolded, smacking Nathan hard on the thigh.

Nathan yelped, rubbing at the offended area with a pout that he knew wouldn’t work on his age-hardened sister; she had become immune to their puppy-dog eyes as soon as they each left elementary school. “But Tony curses more than I do?”

“Hey, why are you turning this on me?!”

“Because he’s right, idiot,” Colin taunted, reaching through the gap between the two front seats to tug on Tony’s hair, much to Alice’s fury.

Nathan snickered and tried to protect Colin from Alice’s onslaught of fists and tickling fingers.

“Hey! No fighting in the car!” Janice complained, adjusting the rearview mirror. “Only when I can join in!”

The five siblings chuckled together, sharing looks and reminiscing about their childhood—when Nathan still needed a car seat in the car and their parents would use a giant eight-seater SUV to haul their massive family everywhere. Tony always sat on the right side window because he got car-sick easily. Nathan sat on the left so their mom could reach him in case he had a tantrum. Alice sat in between them, as the oldest and the one who knew how to calm down fights the best. Colin and Janice always sat in the back, even though they argued the most. 

“Can you imagine another road trip with all of us? With Mom and Dad in the front seats and all of us in the back?”

“That’d be a nightmare!”

_ No, it would not! _ Nathan thought.

“Speak for yourself! It’d be fun.”

_Exactly,_ Nathan grinned at Colin.

“Colin would just be screaming at cows the whole way there.”

“Cows are awesome! We never see them in LA!”

“Why would we travel to see them? You’re already a cow.”

“Hey!”

“You all are way too hyper for 9:00 in the evening,” he mock-groaned, mind whirling from the argument. He curled into Alice’s side, pressing his face into her shoulder, seeking comfort from his eldest sibling.

“Awww,” Tony crooned, turning in his seat to meet Nathan’s glare. “Is the baby jetlagged?”

“I’m not a baby.”

“But you’re _ our _ baby!” Alice declared, tousling Nathan’s curls until they fell into his eyes. He whipped them out of his vision with a glare at his sister’s betrayal, toeing off his sneakers and pulling his knees to his chest.

“Are we home, yet?” He groaned, hiding his flush in his arms.

Colin laughed and attempted to pry Nathan’s arms away from his face, all the while ruffling his hair even more. “You forgot already, little bro? Thirty-minute drive! You’re stuck with us for twenty-six more minutes.”

He checked his non-existent watch with a hum, his free hand still tousling Nathan’s hair until the curls didn’t find one another again.

Nathan groaned smacking Colin’s arms away. “Stop it! Someone just throw me out of the car already…”

“Hey!” Tony reprimanded, pulling out one of Nathan’s hoodies from his backpack and throwing it into his face. “I know you and Colin are in the age range, but no Gen Z humor around us old people, okay? Our hearts can’t handle it.”

Janice scoffed, cuffing Tony on the shoulder with a well-placed fist, never taking her eyes off the road. “Who are you calling old?!”

“You’re two years older than me!”

“And I’m healthy as a horse!”

“You hear that, Nate?” Tony asked, making eye contact with Nathan through the rearview mirror. “Jan just called himself a horse.”

“I did not!”

“You totally did!”

_ Oh, yes,_ Nathan thought. _ A road trip with you four would be a dream come true._

* * *

“Yuki?” Nathan exclaimed as soon as he stepped into the living room of his parents’ house, completely shocked to see his former publicist sitting on the couch. “What are you doing here?!”

“It’s nice to see you too, Nathan,” Yuki smiled, setting down her mug on the coffee table and standing to pull Nathan into a tight hug. “I haven’t seen you in six months! You haven’t grown at all.”

Colin and Tony snickered from their place by the front door and Nathan whipped around to send them a glare that promised suffering and a painful homicide if they embarrassed him more. “Thanks, Yuki.”

“Your hair has gotten longer. Must be nice without Vera Wang telling you what to do, huh?”

“I dunno,” Nathan shrugged reflexively running a hand through his overgrown locks of hair, going cross-eyed to stare at the longest part running down the side of his face. “I think I need a trim again. Look, Yuki, as much as I missed seeing you… why are you here?”

Yuki sighed and picked up her tablet, scrolling to a few articles she left open. She handed it over to Nathan, letting him scan through a couple of headlines. “The world thinks you’re going back to competitive figure skating.”

“What? Why?” He clicked on the People Magazine article, scrolling through the first few paragraphs. “Did someone say something? Is it just a rumor? Who—”

“Nathan, calm down,” Alice hushed, handing him a glass of water she managed to smuggle into the living room from the kitchen (their mother didn’t allow food outside the kitchen or dining room at all). “Take a few deep breaths before you have an attack.”

Sucking in a breath through his lips, Nathan nodded and took a sip of water while Yuki calmly explained the situation. 

“After Stars on Ice: Japan ended, a bunch of figure skaters posted photos and videos on Instagram and Twitter. You were in some of them.”

“So? I’m retired from competitions, not _ disabled _.”

“Nathan!” His mom chided under her breath. “Behave.”

“It’s alright, Hetty,” Yuki sighed. “I completely understand. In some of the videos, Nathan, you were seen doing a triple axel-quad toe with Shoma in the background. You fell after the quad but it still came as a shock to every one, since most had been led to believe you were incapable of jumping.”

Nathan collapsed on the couch, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes. “What do we do? Deny that I’m alright? Say that it wasn’t me?”

“That won’t work,” Janice shook her head. “I may be your sister, but I can clearly tell it’s you. And the jumps look solid, other than the fall. They wouldn’t believe you.”

“So what do we do? Just live with them circling Nathan like vultures?” Tony argued, dropping Nathan’s gym bag onto the linoleum. “This was supposed to be his week off before the Stars on Ice tour. We probably can’t even go to Vons without a van of reporters following us! If they don’t get answers, they won’t leave him alone.”

“Well, whatever answer we give them won’t make sense! He can do quads, he can do a triple axel. _ He can do them in combination._ No, he won’t be competing. Why? Because he doesn’t want to.”

“You need to watch your tone. That’s our kid brother you’re talking about.”

“He’s nineteen.”

“Can he do the other quads?”

“I don’t know!”

“Stop fighting,” Nathan pleaded, dropping his head so he could press his hands to his ears, blocking out the commotion beginning to churn around the air.

“You guys, we need to solve this like adults. Yelling at one another won’t fix it.”

“Do you have a solution? I didn’t think so!”

“Kids, stop fighting. This isn’t helping Nathan’s situation.”

“Why doesn’t he just go back to competing? He can pretty much do one of the hardest combinations out there.”

“Because he doesn’t want to, dumbass. Just leave him be.”

“What did you just call me?!”

_ Enough. _

“I said _ stop_!”

The silence was, ironically, deafening.

Nathan didn’t know if it was because of his sudden outburst or the way his body shot up out of the seat, strung tight with tension and desperation and fury. His lungs heaved air in and out of his body in ragged, gasping breaths but Nathan still felt like he was drowning in the noise.

“Stop. _ Please_.”

He clenched his fists tighter, willing himself to regain his composure. Especially with Yuki there. She didn’t need to witness family drama, much less during a situation like this.

“Ask Raf what we should do,” he said once his breath felt steady enough to carry a sentence. “I think I have a few videos that I sent to Shoma so he could always check up on my step sequence in case he forgot it. I remember doing a double flip and my knee giving out because I was tired. If I could post that, maybe it would quiet things down.”

He excused himself with the simple downturn of his chin, refusing to make eye contact with anyone else in the room.

He didn’t raise his head as he left his place in the center of the living room and picked up his gym bag. Padding up the stairs and down the hallway, all the way to the end where his room was—him and Colin were the only ones left living at home with their parents—the conversation didn’t pick up downstairs until his bedroom door clicked shut.

The lock, too.

Nathan threw his gym bag onto the bed, sitting down next to the unshapely lump and flopping backwards. Belatedly, he realized his bag seemed to be vibrating and blindly felt around for the pocket where he kept his phone.

“Hello?” he answered the call without even opening his eyes, pressing his cellphone to his cheek.

“Nathan? It’s a facetime call,” Yuzuru’s voice responded, much louder than it should have been.

“Oh,” Nathan said belatedly. He held the phone above his head, too exhausted to even feel embarrassed. He reached over to his bedside table and clicked on his lamp, mostly for Yuzuru’s benefit. “Hi, Yuzu. Isn’t it past midnight in Toronto? What are you still doing up?”

“Javi got to Toronto this afternoon, just to refresh his technique at TCC. We went out to eat with some of the other skaters and ended up staying longer than we thought,” Yuzuru shrugged, already changed into his pajamas and sitting on his bed. “What about you? You just got home, right?”

“Yeah,” Nathan groaned, shifting to his side, and propping his head up on his arm. “My siblings picked me up from the airport and took me home.”

“Which ones?”

“_All _ of them.”

Yuzuru laughed, his eyes crinkling up like they always do and he moved to prop his phone up against a pillow. “That sounds like fun.”

“They argued the _ entire _ way home.”

“Like I said,” Yuzuru defended himself. “Fun.”

Nathan sent him a curious look.

Yuzuru sighed and pulled his duvet up onto his shoulders, glancing down at his bed unconsciously, as if he were reliving his memories. “Saya and I are very close, but she is more of a mother than a best friend. Especially because of my illnesses growing up.” He met Nathan’s gaze with a shy smile. “You are lucky your siblings came to pick you up. How are you?”

“How are _ you_?” Nathan countered, much more willing to hear about Yuzuru’s potentially interesting training and/or conversation with Javier rather than disclose the dirty details about the argument still raging in his living room. “We haven’t FaceTimed in like four days.”

“Javi and I talked about some upcoming ice shows when he visited… my jumps are getting stronger and stronger and more… what is the word? Con— Sin...?”

“Consistent?”

“Yes, consistent. At the Olympics, I was not consistent. Shoma could have gotten gold.”

“He was over ten points behind you—“

“I was not perfect—“

“No one is—“

“I could have done better.”

“You scored over three-hundred points total again, and so did Shoma,” Nathan pointed out. “That was on a crap ton of painkillers and coming off a three-month break. That’s better than I could ever do.”

“Not true.”

Nathan sighed and loosened his posture, relaxing into the comfortable warmth that spread throughout his body whenever he hung out with Yuzuru. “I wish you would stop doubting yourself, Yuzu. You’re not perfect but you always try your best. I think that counts for way more than GOE points.”

“Not according to the judges,” Yuzuru huffed stubbornly. “Anyways, how was the trip home? You didn’t text me once you got off the plane like you promised you would.”

“Sorry, I got distracted… Tony and Colin—my youngest older siblings, if that makes sense—kept the paparazzi away so… it was fine. Chaotic, but fine.”

Yuzuru froze. Then, he sighed, pulling his hands from where they were fiddling with the pillow and the phone and dropped them into his lap. “You saw the news?”

“How could I not?” Nathan tiredly rubbed his free hand over his face, scrubbing the frustrations away. When that didn’t work, he sat up with a huff, moving to lean against his headboard. “I got off the plane and there were twenty cameras and microphones shoved in my face. I didn’t answer any questions. They all kept asking me if I was going back to competitions.”

“Was it because of the Instagram post?”

“You saw it? You don’t even have Instagram…”

“Javi and Jason showed me after the articles circulated. Your triple axel looks really clean—”

“And my quad toe’s a flop,” Nathan cut him off, knowing exactly where the conversation was heading. “I don’t know what all the people saw when the video was posted, but it wasn’t the ‘Quad King’ I used to be. Maybe they’re just excited because I’m attempting quad jumps again and it means the media will have their plaything back.”

“What are you talking about?” Yuzuru asked, a confused look painting over his face. “Your quad toe looks fine.”

Nathan scoffed, rolling his eyes. He pulled a pillow onto his lap, curling into the plush like it could swallow him whole. “Look, I really appreciate you trying to lift my spirits but it’s not going to work—”

“_Nathan_,” Yuzuru’s assertion cut into Nathan’s thoughts, voice commanding and gentle in the impossible way Yuzuru seemed to combine contrary emotions into one. “Have you even seen the video? It is on Kanako’s Instagram. I think Rika has it on hers, too.”

“No… I just got home, I haven’t had the chance to watch it,” Nathan explained, skeptical. “Why would I want to see it? It’s just me falling.”

“Just…” Yuzuru shook his head. “Go watch it. I will not hang up, but you need to see it.”

“Alright…” Nathan made a face and picked up his phone, pressing the home button. The search for his video ended on the discover screen; he didn’t even need to search for Kanako’s Instagram. 

A few fansites already reposted the video, with dramatic zooms into Nathan’s form, deep analyses of the jump and how healthy it looked, and over-comprehensive examinations on his shoulder width compared to the previous months, trying to find out if ‘_this is rEALLY our bby nAthAN CHeN the QUAD KING’_. 

He bit at his lip and scrolled past the first few that looked like these types of videos—he just wanted to see a raw video, or at least one without the over-the-top gifs and neon letters flying past the screen.

And then he saw it. A slowed-down version, albeit, but much more pleasing to watch than the other videos.

Behind Kanako and Rika, performing a layback in perfect tandem on the ice—which looked cool and _ very _ impressive if Nathan could say so—Nathan and Shoma stole the attention as they performed a short step sequence in the background, three-turn, twizzle, and then—

A triple axel. Perfect. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. All the other words Nathan was thinking but couldn’t say because he was pretty sure his brain was malfunctioning. A goddamned triple-fucking-axel. Landed easily like it was performed on the clouds. Nathan might’ve grinned a little, proud of himself for landing the jump he was infamous for screwing up.

And then the quad toe loop. Nathan scrunched up his nose in anticipation.

The mini-Nathan and mini-Shoma playing on the video jumped together…

And both landed it perfectly…?

Well, Nathan’s landing was a little weak and forward, especially compared to Shoma’s beautiful 3+ GOE worthy landing, but it was still a proper _landing_ of the element.

Nathan’s eyes zoomed in on his boots, watching as he stepped off his landing foot, about to go into another set of twizzles right after the jump but his toe pick caught on the ice, sending him to the ground.

The video ended and replayed but Nathan still sat there, staring at his phone…

Was he in outer space? There seemed to be no available air to breathe in his room.

“I… I landed the combination? I did the hardest combo? In public?”

Landing a combo like that in practice had been easy. Shoma’s presence outside of a competition was friendly and inviting and could never give Nathan the same pressure that a crowd of world-class competitive figure skaters could (even if Shoma was in that world-class category himself). The fact that all four revolutions managed to somehow squeeze themselves into a combo right after a triple axel seemed completely astounding to Nathan, who tended to not get as much height off the ice during showcases as he did during practice.

“You mean the combo _ only _ Shoma can do? Yes, you landed it,” Yuzuru’s voice answered through the speakers. He sounded smug and triumphant, like he were the one who landed the combo. The genuine glee in his voice spawned butterflies in Nathan’s belly.

“Holy shit,” Nathan breathed, voice airy with exhilaration.

“Don’t curse, it does not suit you,” Yuzuru reprimanded, sounding a lot like Nathan’s siblings. “Now come back! I want to see your face.”

Nathan left Instagram and clicked the bar at the top of his screen, sending him back into the facetime call, where Yuzuru’s bright face greeted him. 

Nathan couldn’t help but smile back, the shock and realization still seeping into his body. “That’s why the press was so riled up today… they saw me land the jumps…”

Yes, he remembered now. The reason he hit the ice wasn’t because of a bad jump, it was because he didn’t pick up his foot enough when stepping into the next twizzle. The disappointment and shock from the sudden fall must’ve blocked part of his memories. 

“You did them really well,” Yuzuru observed, a corner of his mouth tilting up into a crooked grin, a bright halcyon glow emerging around his body as he smiled. “It is kind of funny how you can land a combination that no one else can do, but then trip on nothing right after. The comments on the video agree.”

“You’re mean.”

“The mean one is you, not me,” Yuzuru retorted, sticking out his tongue _ very _ maturely. 

Despite himself, Nathan giggled. “Not this again.”

Then, the argument downstairs seemed to reach a fever pitch. Nathan could hear distinctive voices and tones even though he couldn’t understand their words. His mood dropped like a rock.

“What are we going to tell the press? How do I deny that I’m not going back to competitive figure skating when the whole world just saw me do one of the hardest combination jumps?”

Yuzuru’s eyebrows furrowed and he tilted his head curiously. 

“You are still going to deny the rumors?”

“Duh. This doesn’t change anything. Just… more people know I do jumps for fun, now.”

Yuzuru’s face changed to one of utter disbelief. “That is it? You are not going to go back to competitions?”

“No… we talked about this? I retired for a reason. I can’t do jumps—”

“And you just did the hardest combo like it was nothing!” Yuzuru thundered, face tense in fury at Nathan. “A combo that I cannot do! A combination jump that _ one _ person in the world has landed besides you. You are telling me that you will not return to competitions. Why?!”

Nathan took a deep intermittent breaths during Yuzuru’s enraged speech, looking anywhere in his room but the screen where he knew he would find Yuzuru’s face, but Saya’s disappointed eyes.

“Yuzu, please—”

“I don’t know what to do, Nathan! You are capable of doing so much more but you limit yourself to choreography.”

“There is nothing wrong with choreographing routines.”

“That’s not the point!” Yuzuru exclaimed, his voice laced with a perplexing set of emotions that even Nathan—who was well-versed in the emotions of Yuzuru—couldn’t decipher. Not that Nathan was trying to decipher them; he couldn’t even look Yuzuru in the eye for fear of being pulled back to Saya’s words, to _Saya._ “You hold yourself back. You believe everyone else, even when they are wrong. You listen to the media and the other skaters even though they do not know what you’re capable of!”

“Yuzuru, you’re getting angry, please stop,” Nathan gritted out, gaining the confidence to glance up, hoping his eyes would convey the desperation churning through his gut.

“I cannot believe you. You failed once and now you’re just scared to try again. It’s not that—”

“So that’s just it, then,” Nathan cut him off, voice hardened to a point that Yuzuru had never heard before. Bellicose, almost. Defensive to the point of rage. Yuzuru’s voice trailed off into the oblivion as Nathan continued talking. “I’m a coward? I’m a _failure_?”

Yuzuru didn’t answer. Nathan turned his gaze back to his phone, watching the reactions flicker through Yuzuru’s face in cycles. One emotion then the next, again, and again, and again. Going by too quickly for Nathan to read them.

“Nathan…” Yuzuru spoke in a low, calculated voice, “that is not what I said—”

“Then what did you say?! You know, Saya was right,” Nathan didn’t give Yuzuru the time to explain himself. He found the words tumbling out of his mouth, unfiltered and woven with all the feelings he never let himself express. “I _ am _ a coward. I _ am _ a failure. _ I know!_ I’m so damn tired of people reminding me what I already know! I know this shit! I’ve known since the day I woke up with metal bolted in my leg and my skating career tossed down the drain!”

“_Saya called you that _?”

“She looks so much like you, you know?” Nathan couldn’t even hear Yuzuru’s voice over the crashing ocean waves in his head, beating up a hurricane. The words just kept spilling out, giving and giving and giving. The confessions that he never wanted to confess came out like they were normal, everyday conversation. Was Nathan losing it? He felt like a boat drifting at sea, the victim of his own tumultuous emotions. “For the next three days after she called me a _ failure _ to my face, I had nightmares. But it wasn’t her talking. It was _ you _.”

“Nathan, please calm down.”

“In my dreams, it was you telling me I was incapable. That I failed, that I was never going to be good at anything ever again. That I screwed up on the _ one _ good thing I had left in my life.”

“Nate-kun, _ ochitsuku_. It is not me, it would _ never _ be me—”

“I never told anyone. I told myself they were just dreams,” he admitted, wondering why he couldn’t feel any tears welling up in his eyes, and why the choking feeling deep down in his chest didn’t seem to be affecting his speech. “You know, I told myself that you would never be the person to give up on me. That you’d be the one still by my side even when I gave up on everything. That you’d be the last person in the world on my side— I thought you were _ in love _ with me. The way I was in love with you.”

The profession flowed smoothly from Nathan’s mouth, as if he hadn’t been holding it back for the past two years. Furiously keeping it tucked away, afraid of being revealed. How could a feeling so profound be expressed so easily?

“Nathan—”

Nathan hated how easily his name flowed off Yuzuru’s tongue. A twinge of an accent, with some strange emotion knitted into each letter. An emotion that tasted like caramel and cotton candy and felt like crisp linen. But now, the taste of each syllable turned bitter, and his name felt rough and desperate. 

Why was it so obvious that Yuzuru didn’t love Nathan?

“Maybe I was being foolish. Maybe I’m just a lovesick teen,” Nathan cut Yuzuru off again, straightening his posture as he seemed to come to a sudden conclusion. Or... maybe it wasn’t so sudden. Perhaps it was exactly what Nathan had been thinking for the seven whole months he realized he was in love with Yuzuru Hanyu.

“Listen, Nathan—”

“Maybe _ I _ was right, months ago.” Nathan looked directly into the camera, his own voice feeling alien to his lips. “There’s no way a person like you could ever find anything good in someone like me. I feel so goddamn _ worthless _ next to you. Knowing that you still have your dream job and a world admiring your every move.”

“Nathan, you need to slow down. Your breathing is speeding up and I’m worried that—”

“Stop it, Yuzuru. Get some sleep. You’re a competitive figure skater and you have practice tomorrow. Worlds are coming up in less than a month. Don’t waste your chance like I did…” A deep breath. Then, “Don’t waste your time on someone like me. Goodbye.”

Despite the protests and pleads that accompanied Nathan’s dismissal, he tapped the red ‘end call’ button and tossed his phone aside.

Nathan groaned and brought his hands up to rub at his face, only to pull back when he realized his fingers were now damp.

Tears.

Strange. Nathan couldn’t even feel them tracking down his face.

Off to the side, Nathan’s phone began to vibrate. He glanced at the screen, wincing when Yuzuru’s silly contact picture greeted him. He picked it up, gently tracing Yuzuru’s smiling face as his phone continued to ring with an incoming call. When the picture disappeared, he held down the ‘off’ button on his phone, swiping to shut down the device. 

_ Has-been. _

_ Such a shame… _

He was left with his own, pitiful reflection staring back at him, tears blatantly obvious in the dim light of his room. Throwing his phone against the far wall with a defeated wail, Nathan couldn’t care less if it broke or cracked or even shattered a window.

All he could feel was the shattering feeling in his chest, wondering why it felt like waking up from surgery all over again, discovering his legs were immobile, and being told he could never skate again.

He wondered why all the best things in his life seemed to be ripped away whenever he felt the happiest.

_ All your fault. _

_ You’re a coward. _

_ You gave up. _

Nathan sank against his pillows, wanting the ground to swallow him up. Wanting to take a dive off the pier and let the waves toss his body deeper and deeper underwater, crushing the air from his lungs with each jarring movement.

He wished he had Yuzuru’s arms to wrap around him, comfort him; to wake him up from the bad dream that felt like too-hot water and cold shower tiles. To wash away the goosebumps with warm hands and breathy kisses and too much skin. Wash away the dream.

_ But this isn’t a dream._

He pressed his face to the comforter and began to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. ochitsuku : calm down
> 
> \- there's only one japanese translation?! wow what a surprise; am i really me without fifteen unnecessary translations from other languages?  
\- this is v angsty  
\- sorry i updated a little late but i kind of passed out after school yesterday so here i am!!  
\- i also binge-watched all of yuri on ice in a day and a half when i was supposed to be doing homework but thats okay  
\- dont forget to like, comment, and subscribe my doods


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan wasn’t moving.
> 
> _ Holy shit _ , Nathan wasn’t moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there's no japanese translations this time... surprising, i know.
> 
> anyways, another (probably redundant) reminder that i changed the date of the world championships 2019... they begin on april 29th instead of mid-march. please remember this if you're a stickler for details. if you didn't even know the date of worlds 2019 to begin with, then ignore this psa. thanks :)

> “Some things we remember because they made us happy. Others, we remember because of how fiercely they stole the happiness away.”
> 
> — Elleah, my “editor”, probably on a sugar high

* * *

To Yuzuru, skating on the ice didn’t feel like home. 

(That would imply he was reminded of his house whenever he skated, and that was entirely incorrect. To him, it was the opposite way around. Whenever he was at home, he was reminded of the ice and how it accepted him and all his imperfections. In his father’s hugs he felt the breeze of a camel spin. In his mother’s cooking he tasted the flavored vitamin water Brian insisted he drank during practice. In his bed, wrapped tightly in his covers each night, he was reminded of the tight hug of his boots.)

To Yuzuru, the ice held magic. Tiny little spells that were released whenever he brushed his blades over the surface of a rink; bits of fairy dust that brought him higher into the air with each jump. With each cold touch of his fingers to the ice, he wondered how heroic he must’ve been in a past life to be able to dance across the ice as if he controlled it with his own mind.

Even on way too many painkillers to be legal and working with what had to be the toughest list of competitors in Yuzuru’s life, attending the 2018 Olympics felt like a fever dream. (Well, he definitely had a fever… and the number of times he dreamed about stepping onto Olympic ice for a second time were innumerable. Did it count as a fever dream, then?)

Even though keeping off the ice for three months had been more painful than the actual injury, somehow Brian managed to keep Yuzuru busy with flexibility workshops and scaled-down versions of the hip-hop classes he already took. However, his leg had barely healed before the Games, and Yuzuru would definitely not be able to skate without the help of too many bottles of painkillers.

He decided to decline the offer to skate for Team Japan for the team event, at Brian’s ardent prompting. Although getting another chance to step onto the ice would make his entire career—let alone season—better, he agreed that it might be too much strain on his already-exhausted body and all the injuries that came along for the ride. 

Still, he elected to watch the competition at the rink, inside the warm-up area where a large TV broadcasted all the skaters. He couldn’t understand the Korean commentators and they, of course, didn’t have Japanese subtitles available for the live broadcast, but Yuzuru didn’t really need them. Numbers were universal, as were scores and rotations. Yuzuru really wished he had Junhwan with him to potentially translate, though. It seemed like the announcers were saying some interesting things. But alas, Junhwan was with Team Korea and they probably had more interesting things to do than hang with a drunk-alike Yuzuru Hanyu.

Some familiar faces passed by occasionally, and Yuzuru would send them a quick smile or wave and even hug some of the ones he was closest to, trying not to be too obvious with the favoritism. A few people caught him. Whoops.

Yuzuru’s only companion during that watching session was loyal Pooh-san. But he didn’t offer much commentary and was therefore kind of boring to be around.

Also, Yuzuru’s mind on the anesthetics seemed to work at about three times its normal speed while his body remained the same pace. This made for a very clumsy, uncoordinated bundle of elbows who laughed at everything even remotely funny, and really just wanted to be an official commentator for the Olympics channels in western countries like America or Canada—Yuzuru could speak English well enough for it. Probably.

_ Hopefully. _

Maybe on a good day, without the thirty different drugs zooming through his bloodstream like race cars on crack. His thoughts moved and changed at about the same speed as the painkillers.

Saya, who had come with their father and mother, came to watch the team event with her boyfriend; and even she, who had lived with Yuzuru’s eccentric behavior for the better part of eighteen years, couldn’t handle his “Tigger-like behavior” (her exact words).

(He might’ve tried to bounce around like Tigger after she left to find her seat.)

(It didn’t work.)

Patrick Chan’s fall on two of his jumps made Yuzuru tense up in second-hand pain and frustration. Alexei Bychenko’s near-fall and quick save almost—literally—knocked Yuzuru off his feet in surprise and the cheer from the crowd and other Olympians could be heard even from where Yuzuru resided in the practice room.

And then Nathan’s short program.

Yuzuru knew the young skater well. Apart from seeing him at multiple international competitions, Nathan also came by The Cricket Club pretty frequently to take part in training camps, receive choreography from Shae-Lynn if she was working with Yuzuru, or even just to visit Brian or the other skaters if he was in the area for some random reason. 

(Usually for a new pair of boots. The company that sponsored Nathan’s boots had headquarters a little over an hour or so drive away from TCC and Nathan—the crazy little American he is—didn’t mind driving that long  _ just to stop by and visit _ .)

(Seriously,  _ what is up _ with Americans and driving long distances?)

Yuzuru wouldn’t give Nathan the title of a best friend, like the title someone like Javier or Shoma would probably possess, but Nathan was still a  _ good _ friend of Yuzuru’s. Someone Yuzuru would trust with Pooh-san, or his skates (even as a competitor), but not his passport (true story, he actually left his passport in Shoma’s pocket once. Only because he knew Shoma wouldn’t be awake enough to get out of his seat and somehow lose it). 

Nathan was a good competitor, too. One of the strongest, in fact, even for his young age. 

_ Scary _ , Yuzuru’s mind enthusiastically supplied, still flying like a rocket on the drugs.  _ Scary for your gold medals _ .

Although he obviously wanted Team Japan to win, and by extension, Shoma to do the best in the short program event, he couldn’t help but wish Nathan the best as he stepped onto the ice, clad in his minimalistic—and probably way too expensive for what it offered—black Vera Wang attire.

‘Nemesis’ was  _ that _ sort of track to Yuzuru. The track that he would have loved to skate to in theory, but would probably never actually have gotten around to it. But it seemed just Nathan’s style; fast-paced, dramatic, contemporary, and with a steady beat keeping the music going, compared to Yuzuru’s typical classical pieces. 

Yuzuru’s favorite part of the entire program sat in the first few measures of the song, in the intense and commanding presence Nathan established on the ice. The staccato moves, each delivering blow of his blades to the ice, Yuzuru could see why this young teen had become a media darling for the United States 2018 Olympic Team, and how he ascended into prominence so quickly in the skating community.

Admittedly, Nathan’s set-up into his first jump—obviously a quad—left a little to be desired. With as much emphasis as Brian put on the connections between elements during his summer camps, Yuzuru had to admit he was a little surprised. But, whatever. Nathan was way more consistent on his quadruple flips and lutzes than Yuzuru was, so he obviously found something that worked for him.

Speaking of quads, the lutz that Nathan jumped seemed to be a nice height, but just a little—

_ Oh, no, a fall _ .

Yuzuru’s heart went out to Nathan. A fall during a free program you could usually make up for later on, but the layout of short programs made it really hard to catch up on points. He knew for a fact that Nathan was one of those skaters who took falls really badly—kind of like Shoma, who would groan for a whole minute after falling during a warmup.

Nathan let out a strangled cry that was audible over the music—ouch—and the whole audience mirrored his gasp, surprised at the uncharacteristic mistake. Nathan rarely underrotated, so he obviously wasn’t prepared to compensate for his flow being interrupted. Not to mention his toe pick caught on the ice, sending him off-balance.

_ Ouch, did his chin just hit the ice? _

Yuzuru winced, recalling his own experience in colliding with the ice; a memory still kind of sore in his own mind. The pain and disorientation, the feeling of ice and snow under your hands juxtaposed against the warm trickle of blood. Yuzuru shivered and watched with bated breath on how Nathan would attempt to recover from the fall and the impending deductions, especially with what could potentially be a concussion. (And by the looks of the landing, probably a sprained or twisted ankle. Plus a whole lot of bruises. Ouch.)

But Nathan didn’t get up.

His body slid across the ice for a few meters, still carrying the momentum from his jump and the entire arena waited for the US Figure Skating Team’s precious member to pick himself off the ice and skate his fucking boots off. Yuzuru would expect hell for the individuals, where Nathan was sure to give his all and make sure he didn’t mess up the second time. After all, Nathan seemed to possess the same magical fighting spirit that Yuzuru did; minus the extra stubbornness. Nathan didn’t look nearly as hard-headed as the skating community knew Yuzuru to be.

From the very corner of the screen, the different countries’ teams gathered in their little booths were sharing concerned glances and some started to stand up as if that would give them a better view of the situation. It probably didn’t help, as Nathan’s fall happened on the opposite side of the rink. 

Speaking of which, Nathan didn’t get up.

In fact, he didn’t even move. It took much longer than it should have for Yuzuru to realize that Nathan wasn’t going to get up. Knocked out cold on the ice, Nathan’s 2018 Olympic dream might’ve come to an end as soon as it started.

Where the hell were the medics? And why was the music still playing? Yuzuru watched in horror as Nathan Chen, the eighteen-year-old superstar skater from the USA, laid there, unconscious, on the icy stage he had a reputation for conquering. Team USA seemed to be freaking out, as were the entirety of the crowd. And yet, throughout all this chaos, the cameras were  _ still broadcasting _ Nathan, live, for the whole world to see: a frozen picture— _ a dead-looking body _ —against a crowd of distressed and horrified spectators. Was this legal? Wasn’t he technically a minor in Korea? Yuzuru wondered where Nathan’s parents were throughout this mess; were they in America, watching their son get hurt from thousands of miles away; had they managed to secure a ticket in the arena— _ where the hell were the goddamn medics _ ?!

Nathan wasn’t moving.

_ Holy shit _ , Nathan wasn’t moving.

* * *

“Nathan?! Oh my god, it  _ is _ you!”

Nathan turned his head at the sudden influx of new sounds into his senses, searching for the source within the mostly empty rink. That day he, surprisingly, decided to change things up and  _ not _ be the very last person to enter the rink for rehearsal. Flying out to Fort Myers the night before SOI rehearsal had been hectic and very tiring, but all the more satisfying coming to the rink, freshly zamboni-ed, and a whole half an hour before everyone else.

The sound technicians and lighting personnel were still running around the perimeter of the rink, getting everything set up for the performance about to take place in a week. Nathan hoped his gym bag and binder of formations laying off to the side on dry land wasn’t in their way.

Getting absorbed into his music came easily to Nathan, especially without other skaters to watch out for on the ice. So getting an armful of another skater came as quite a surprise.

“Maia? Whoa—”

He barely had time to brace himself before Maia had thrown herself against Nathan, her arms quickly wrapping around Nathan’s midsection and constricting. Belatedly, he remembered that not hugging back was rude, so he managed to wrap his arms around her shoulders gently. He had been so absorbed in the music playing through his headphones that he hadn’t even realized someone else joined him on the ice.

“You guys are here early… wait, where’s Alex?” He asked, made aware of the lack of a five-foot-eleven ShibSib.

(And three-quarters. So rounded up, it would be six feet. Alex’s words, not Nathan’s.)

Maia shrugged, detangling herself from Nathan to skate alongside him. “Probably getting the camera set up. Where have you been?!”

“Here, working on this piece,” Nathan replied, pausing his music and pocketing one of his airpods. He didn’t entirely understand Maia’s question. Maybe his brain was just working too slow that morning. Maybe it was exhaustion, or the lack of a sustainable breakfast. “Was there somewhere I was supposed to be...?”

Maia sent him an unimpressed look and crossed her arms, beginning to swizzle her feet to warm up. “After the Instagram fiasco, you dropped off the face of the earth. No one’s heard from you and Alex and I have been texting but you never responded. We asked Adam and he says he hasn’t run you in Lakewood. I even asked Mariah and Romain—you know I barely talk to them because I don’t even know them that well—and then they said they haven’t seen you or texted you!”

“Oops,” Nathan winced, sheepishly rubbing his palms together. “That’s my fault. I broke my phone two weeks ago and I haven’t gotten it replaced yet. I haven’t had the time to go to the Apple Store and transfer my data. My mom gave me hers in the meantime,” he explained, holding up his mother’s crappy and cracked iPhone 5.

Maia snickered at the sight of the pitiful device held in Nathan’s hands, probably relishing in his misery. “You broke your phone? How? You’re not a very clumsy person. Not to  _ that _ extent, at least.”

“I threw it against the wall and the screen shattered,” he mumbled, trying to be nonchalant about it. “I’m not sure how it broke because I dropped it off a balcony once and it barely scratched, so maybe it hit the edge of my desk or something—”

“You  _ threw _ your phone against the wall and it  _ broke _ ,” Maia’s incredulous voice cut through his monologue.

“Well—” he attempted to explain himself, before deciding otherwise. He breathed in a sigh, copying her swizzles so he wasn’t awkwardly watching her skate. Besides, he just got a new pair of skates and was using the rehearsal to hopefully break them in. Might as well  _ attempt _ to soften them up. “Yeah. I did.”

“ _ Jesus— _ you… Because of the Instagram thing?”

“No, it’s—”  _ because Yuzuru and I had a big fight and we kind of broke up even though we were never really together and I didn’t want to answer his call so I threw my phone away and now it’s broken just like my heart is and I really just want to cry— _

“I saw some hate tweets,” he answered lamely, voice carefully devoid of any emotion.

Maia arched a single eyebrow. She could obviously smell Nathan’s bullshit from a mile away but graciously decided to ignore it and take his word for it. Nathan internally facepalmed at his excuse. Maia knew that the hate tweets and online comments wouldn’t phase him—they never did.

“You’re doing okay, then?”

“What do you mean? I’m doing amazing, as always.”

He turned around and set up for a jump; a single revolution, just to get his blood flowing and to make sure his boots felt good enough. Maia waited patiently until he skated back to her side, arms crossed over her chest.

“You’re pale as a sheet of paper, and you look like you’re about to collapse!” Maia said, gesturing wildly. She took notice of Nathan’s hands, still clutching his mom’s phone in a death grip. “Look! Your hands are shaking! Your hands never shake!”

(They’ve been shaking since last week, but whatever.)

“That’s just because it’s cold. I’m fine, you don’t have to worry—”

“Nathan, I found you sobbing into Shoma’s arms three weeks ago. Then Javi and Shoma bring you anxiety pills, which apparently you’ve been taking since you were  _ seventeen _ ? A week after that, you vanish from everyone’s sight and don’t answer any texts. Let me be  _ worried _ , okay?”

_ Well, when you put it that way… _

Despite himself, Nathan smiled in gratitude. He was thankful to have friends like Maia, Alex, Shoma, and Javier, who cared for him and didn’t hold his condition against him. They worried and helped, yes, but that was the extent. Except, of course, when it came to his skating. Ever since Nathan trained with them at Marina’s club, Maia and Alex have somehow acquired the souls of all Nathan’s siblings and become the ultimate mother-hen duo.

“I’m okay, I swear.”

He nearly lost his balance somehow, even though he was usually more graceful on the ice than he was on dry land. Maia took notice and her worry skyrocketed, just like her eyebrows.

“Did you just  _ trip _ ? On the  _ ice _ ?”

“I just lost my balance—”

“But  _ you _ don’t lose your balance!  _ Ohmygod _ ,” Maia began to promptly freak out.

“Maia, calm down—”

“This all started in Japan, with your panic attack. Did something happen before the show? Shoma told us you met Yuzuru’s sister,” Maia seemed to be working out the entire story on her own, confirming the facts by the slightest reactions on Nathan’s face that she learned to read like a book. “Wait… why would you meet Yuzu’s— is there something going on between you and Yuzuru?”

Nathan’s eye caught movement at the side of the rink and he raised his head to greet the incoming skater. “Alex!”

“Nathan, don’t change the subject—”

“Alex, it’s nice to see you,” Nathan greeted, skating away from Maia. He knew it was very rude to run away while she was obviously trying to get his attention, but he couldn’t risk Maia coaxing the truth out of him with her conniving way of speaking. Tales of the Shibutanis’ loyalty to their skating friends often made rounds in the figure skating community, and as they were close friends of both Nathan and Yuzuru, they would probably take a side. Maybe even different sides. 

Nathan didn’t want to be the cause of a fight, nor did he want anyone to lose any friends in the process.

“Nice to see you too, Nathan. It’s been a while.”

“It’s only been two weeks, dude. Are you warmed up enough? Let’s see if you remember my routine.”

* * *

“Nathan? Holy hell, it is you.”

Kind of used to the adverse reactions of his presence, Nathan reluctantly glanced up from his formations binder, preparing himself to get yelled at by another friend. However, when he saw Jason making his way over, Nathan couldn’t help but grin and wave him over.

“Jason! Hi—”

“I didn’t think you were going to show up,” Jason states, cutting off Nathan—most likely unintentionally, judging by the frantic look in his eyes. “I thought for sure you wouldn’t be here today.”

Nathan shared a glance with Maia and Alex, utterly thrown off. “Uh… what?”

“Yuzuru’s a mess,” Jason answered—well, not entirely. He probably didn’t mean to, but it kind of answered the question. “He’s worried about you and you weren’t answering his calls. He’s barely landing any jumps, he refuses to work on his exhibition piece, and he never goes anywhere without his phone because he’s so worried you might call and he’ll miss it. I tried to call you, too, but nothing went through. I called Vincent because you’re always texting him memes and stuff like that. Adam didn’t have an answer. Michal hasn’t seen you. What happened?!”

The question was very clear. Nathan understood perfectly. However, answering Jason moved to the very bottom of his priorities once he heard about the condition of a specific  _ someone _ .

“Yuzu’s not doing well?” He asked, small and meekly, more to himself than to the small group of people accumulating. He hadn’t been too aware that ‘breaking up’ would hurt Yuzuru as much as it did him. It seemed that Nathan might even be doing better than Yuzuru was.

As much as he wanted to believe it, he knew it wasn’t true. Nathan could get by, sure, but his life would never be the same. The fullness in his chest whenever he woke up in Yuzuru’s arms could never be replicated by being with someone else. Every step on the ice reminded him of Yuzuru’s laugh, his clumsy smile, meaningful and lingering caresses disguised as casual hugs or high-fives. 

Yuzuru’s pain was temporary. Sharp, quick, but easy to recover from. Like a paper-cut. After all, he didn’t love Nathan the way Nathan loved him.

Nathan’s pain would never heal. Would never be the same. Much like his injuries from the Olympics.

(They would heal, but the wound would forever ache whenever he stepped on the ice.)

(Was Nathan born to suffer?)

“He’s jumping like crazy but he can barely land anything. Brian says it’s because his axis is off. Tracy says it’s because he can’t concentrate.”

_ My fault, my fault, I did that _ .

Nathan sharply inhaled, collecting his composure enough to shut his binder and set it down next to his other things. Standing back up, he grabbed his gym bag and turned towards the exit of the rink, nearly slamming into Vincent on his way down the narrow rinkside path. “I’ll be back, guys.”

He didn’t bother glancing back to see what the others said; all he could think was  _ getmeoutofherebeforeIstartscreaming _ .

He made it to the men’s locker room—not the dressing room this time, mostly because of all the, ahem,  _ bad memories _ —once again managing to find himself the only one there. He drunkenly stumbled over some of the bags laying on the floor of the room, crumbling onto an open section of a bench. With a hiss, he began to peel up the cuff of his pants to expose his entire boot, undoing his laces with practiced ease. His fingers seemed to just follow muscle memory, thankfully, because Nathan’s mind was ten-thousand miles elsewhere.

He pulled off each skate, then each sock, grimacing at the bruises that adorned the balls of his feet and ankles. Nathan hated breaking in boots. It never went well when he was in a rush.

Tossing his damp socks heedlessly into his gym bag, he was fishing around for a newer pair when suddenly the door to the locker room opened with a  _ whoosh _ ing sort of noise.

“I’m not going to call him, Jason.”

“You really should.”

“Why is that?”

Jason puffed out a single breath, looking defeated and determined all at once. “Yuzuru’s doing horrible. I was worried he was going to pass out during practice. He keeps practicing ‘Origin’ over and over again even though his lines are jerky and his jumps never land. I don’t think he’s really eating and the bags under his eyes are—“

“And what can I do about it?” Nathan pressed, finding a clean pair of socks and unrolling them. “I can’t exactly leave and go to spoon-feed him. Me being there won’t help him at all. And I can’t call him, anyways,” Nathan hissed out, pulling one of the socks on slowly despite the pain it caused when the rough material brushed over his bruises. “My phone broke.”

Jason sat down on a bench opposite Nathan. “Look, I don’t know what was going on between you two, but I do know it was serious, and I’m wor—“

“It wasn’t serious.”

“What?”

“Yuzuru and I,” Nathan said, even though it felt weird saying his and Yuzuru’s names together like that; like they were an item or something. “We weren’t serious. We were never together. We had… something, but not that.”

Jason’s expression flickered. He obviously didn’t expect that to come out of Nathan’s mouth. “You aren’t his boyfriend?”

“No,” Nathan answered, hoping the longing sigh was absent from his voice. “I never will be.”

“B-but you two were—“

Nathan pulled on one skate and then started to fiddle around with the other one, not yet bothering with the loosened laces. He didn’t want to stay much longer and end up snapping; Yuzuru and him may not be associated anymore but Nathan still wanted to keep some of their shared friends.

“Look, Jason, if you’re here to just remind me of things I already know, then I’m just gonna go—“

“No… it’s just… what happened? Why does he look like he’s about to cry whenever he looks at your contact picture?”

Nathan’s heart made a very strange feeling in the center of his chest; kind of like a strangling, choking sort of feeling. Like his insides were going to cave in and then bubble up and explode. 

“Must be nostalgia or something,” he bitterly spat out, loosening the laces on his second boot with way too much force, his arms jerky and fumbling with the potency of his emotion. The laces came undone much more than they needed to but Nathan couldn’t find it in his heart to care.

“No, Nathan,” Jason seemed to pull back, recognizing the frustration and covert emotions running through Nathan’s entire system. “He’s hurting really bad. I don’t have a clue in the slightest about what happened between you two, but he is  _ not _ okay and I—”

“What about me?” Nathan cut Jason off, throwing down his second boot, feeling the satisfaction when it slammed into the floor of the locker room and left a resounding echo. He couldn’t find himself to care that the blades could be damaged. “What about what  _ I _ feel? How hurt I was? You know, I’m getting pretty tired of people putting someone else’s well-being over my own. Why is it always me that has to compromise?”

“Nathan, what are you talking—”

“I met Yuzuru’s sister in Japan,” Nathan sagged against the wall, tipping his head back so he didn’t have to look Jason in the eye. He feared he might see pity, fear, or worse, his own reflection in Jason’s eyes. “She called me a quitter, a coward… a  _ failure _ . She told me that I didn’t deserve Yuzuru because I give up when things get hard. And, of course, she just had to look like a female reincarnation of Yuzuru because the  _ world just hates me like that _ . All I could imagine was Yuzuru telling me I wasn’t good enough.”

Jason, bless his soul, let Nathan rant on. He listened like his life depended on it, offering Nathan his silence: what Nathan needed most in that moment.

Nathan could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. He shut them tightly, squeezing every last ounce of his energy into keeping the moisture locked away. He didn’t want to cry in front of Jason. Not now.

“And then after I got home, he called me. We talked about random stuff… how the show went, if I got home safely… he asked me if I was going back to competitions. I said no… then we started to fight. I don’t even remember what happened, I— I just remember him looking angry and disappointed like Saya. I remember feeling like I lost my skating all over again.”

Jason frowned, a sympathetic look in his eyes. Nathan held his gaze for a few moments before his eyesight went blurry with tears.

“What does the world have against me, Jason?” Nathan asked, feeling completely and utterly broken. “Or God, whoever the hell is calling the shots in my life? Everything I love has been ripped away in the most painful way possible; I can’t skate anymore because I was injured  _ while skating _ , I can’t love Yuzuru because I’m  _ me _ , I can’t—” 

Jason reeled back from the weight behind Nathan’s words.

“Whoa, Nathan—” 

“I don’t have anything anymore! Nothing!” Nathan’s tears betrayed his wishes and began to roll down his cheeks, probably leaving angry red marks on his face. But that’s okay. Nathan has been betrayed by a lot of things lately. “The two things I had for  _ myself _ , the two things where I felt like I was actually winning and doing good... they’re gone…” 

“They aren’t gone, Nathan,” Jason reassured, voice gentle in a way Nathan hadn’t heard before that day. “You’ve just lost your way and need guidance back. You can get them both back. You’re so damn amazing and you deserve the world. You can do it.”

“No, I can’t.” 

Jason just smiled wistfully, kneeling down to pick up Nathan’s discarded skate. “I remember watching you choreograph Yuzuru’s exhibition piece… he would do a jump and you’d watch in envy as he landed it perfectly and you weren’t allowed to jump because Brian and Tracy were there with the other skaters and I.” 

Nathan took the skate gratefully, slipping it on over his socks. If Jason used his sweater sleeve to wipe away the tears running down Nathan’s cheeks, Nathan didn’t say a thing about it.

“And?” 

“There are no coaches here… It’s an ice show,” Jason grinned mischievously as Nathan began to tighten his boots. Left first, then right.  _ Strictly _ . “Raf is in LA, Brian and Tracy are in Toronto, and Marina’s in… wherever she coaches. And all the skaters here for warm-ups are on your side. If you jump a few times we promise not to tell on you. And if you want to perform a solo a few days from now for a live audience… none of us would be against it.” 

“I can’t jump—” 

“Bullshit.” 

Nathan tittered, pressing a hand to his mouth. The shock of hearing Jason curse overcame him and he managed to squeak out: “Yuzuru said the same thing.” 

“I know, I heard him,” Jason rolled his eyes. “I also know you’re completely capable of doing quads because of that video that went viral.”

Nathan, remembering exactly how he got into this situation, sensed his mood taking a turn for the worse. Jason seemed to notice as well and acquiesced.

“Look, if you try a program—any program, as long as it has at least one quad—I’ll buy you dinner after rehearsal today.”

He couldn’t always be tempted this easily with food, but the idea of actually being able to jump a quad, in front of his friends, free from the scrutiny of the media, public, and overprotective coaches made the offer that much more appealing.

“I know this isn’t the best time to mention it, but I think you believed Yuzuru when he said you could keep skating. But... I don’t think you believed in  _ yourself _ . You’re not a coward or a failure; everyone is scared of something and everyone falls. But to get over fears, you have to face them. And in order to get back up after a fall, you have to try.”

_ Holy shit _ .

Nathan finished tying his laces, standing up to turn to the locker room door.

“I’ll try a program,” he tried sounding nonchalant but the waver in his voice was probably still picked up by Jason. “If it goes well, I’ll perform. If it doesn’t, you’re still buying me food.”

“Deal!”

Nathan handed over his mother’s crappy iPhone, open to a music file of a song he had always dreamt of doing a program to; one of the first pieces he worked on with Shae-Lynn when she was teaching him how to choreograph. 

“‘Caravan’?” Jason asked, reading off the screen of the phone. “Where’s that from?”

“Nothing in particular,” Nathan shrugged, carefully steering Jason around a corner since the other skater wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings “Just a random jazzy piece I like. This probably would have been my short program for this season if…”

Nathan trailed off. Jason understood the missing words. “I see. Well, I’ll give this to the sound techs!”

“Wait, what—” Nathan tried to grab Jason’s sweater but he was already way too far, somehow managing to sprint and balance on his skate guards simultaneously. Nathan didn’t bother following after. When Jason had his mind set on something, it was impossible to disagree.

Nathan made his way onto the ice, past all the other skaters who looked like they wanted to greet him if it weren’t for the determined look in his eyes. Maia and Alex were still there, off to the side of the rink. With them, were Meryl and Charlie, Ashley, Bradie, and Jeremy. Vincent, Zach, Mirai, and Madison were skating around the rink, warming up and doing random exercises.

Nathan came to a stop on the ice, right where Shae-Lynn recommended him to be. ‘Somewhere interesting’, she told him. ‘You’re different so your choreography should be different. Don’t start in the center like everyone else.’

“You ready?!” Jason’s voice called out from the sound booth, echoing throughout the vast arena, which was suddenly much more silent than it should have been, especially with Team USA (the ‘loud monkeys’ of all the other figure skating teams).

“Yeah!” Nathan called back, realizing just how dry his mouth felt, even as he fell into his position, balanced over onto one leg.

The drums. Nathan asked a friend to record a specific drumroll for the beginning of “Caravan”. The song always felt like it needed an introduction. A dramatic drumroll felt like the way to go.

The steps came easily, as did the facial expressions. Nathan hadn’t skated this particular program in probably a month, since he managed to snag thirty minutes of private ice time late in the night after the novices’ recital in Lakewood. Nathan just enjoyed dancing “Caravan” wholeheartedly. Even when he first got back on the ice, legs still shaking with the effort of keeping his body upright and balanced, even when he couldn’t jump, Nathan still danced to “Caravan”.

And the first jump.

Shae-Lynn said that if it were up to her, and this program was choreographed with Short Program rules in mind, the first jump would have been a triple axel. Why not?

A triple axel.

Nathan’s personal nemesis, even before the PyeongChang injury. Landed and perfectly brought into the next step ( _ without _ a trip-up this time).

The cheers that the other skaters let out might’ve been deafening, but none were louder than Nathan’s own. The grin on his face stretched impossibly wider. He giggled childishly. A little kid caught up in an adult’s much bigger body, jumping and prancing like he was ten years old again.

With each step timed to the beat of the music, the voices and crashing waves in his head started to lessen their pressuring chants, making way for something akin to choirs of angels. Nathan felt giddy with release of his biggest enemy.

Another jump.

Quad lutz?

Why not?

(That might’ve just become Nathan’s new slogan.)

Deep outside edge, toe pick assist. Four rotations, counter to the position of your legs. Dictionary definitions that used to be like cutting butter for Nathan: smooth, easy. The jumps came second-nature, just like they always did.

The wind flying in Nathan’s hair, the feeling of split-second weightlessness, the dizzying feeling of landing? Not to mention the satisfying scratch of the ice as he landed, maybe a tad too forward, but perfect in every other aspect. Nathan could do this forever.

Why  _ hadn’t _ he been doing this forever?

The turn sequences were always Nathan’s least-liked part of any program. Shae-Lynn had to choreograph the turns for “Caravan” because Nathan just downright refused to make them himself. 

Even though he usually hated practicing spins, this time, it felt right. Happy and disorienting and nearly thrown off balance, Nathan changed each position with practiced ease. He barely skated this program since he never really had the ice to himself, but he had skated it so many times in his dreams that the movements came second nature. Like a practiced champion, muscle memory took over and all Nathan had to concentrate on was adding some swagger to the dance.

Exiting the spin, he skated past the group of his teammates, now all gathered off the ice but still watching him excitedly. He gave them a little attitude, pretending to conduct their claps in time with the music, then hiking up the collar of his crew-necked sweater with a smirk. 

The voices in his head were gone. Completely. Like they had never been there before. They always told Nathan he couldn’t do it and that he would fail. And yet here he was, skating a world-class short program like he never left the ice to begin with.

Then the final jump. Of course, going by ISU guidelines for the short program, this jump had to be a combo. Nathan never really practiced combos after his injury (except for Shoma’s 3A+4T combo that he just so happened to be lucky to land)… what should he do?

Quad toe + triple toe?

Why not?

Landed. Easily. And immediately into a flying sit spin that, of course, Shae-Lynn choreographed.

After that, though, there were only a few more spins and a step sequence. The hard work was over.

Finishing up “Caravan” was something like a victory lap for Nathan. That final, euphoric moment after realizing  _ you’ve won _ . Except for Nathan, it was him realizing  _ you can win again _ .

Maybe he lost a lot of things in his life. Maybe the world was unfair and unnecessarily harsh. But Nathan persevered. He kept his head up above the waves and kept skating and even though he was scared to keep going, he eventually found his way again. He could always do the quads; in his heart he knew he was always capable. But increasing pressure from his teammates, coaches, the US Figure Skating International Committee, and the entire country to be perfect left him gasping for respite. Now, without burdening pressure weighing him down to the point of crippling his self-confidence, Nathan could skate again.

Yuzuru always told him his career wasn’t over, that he didn’t need to listen to the media, that he could still skate and compete and land quads like a master. Nathan never believed in  _ himself _ . He never thought to just shut his ears to the dictators behind the cameras telling him what to do. He always listened to the voices commentating until they became the voices in his head, whispering his worst nightmares to him. But to get rid of fears, you have to face them head-on.

_ I’m not afraid anymore _ .

The program ended with as much fanfare as it started and even though there were only about twenty people in the arena (including the sound and light techs), the roar of their applause sounded no different than a sold-out show.

The other skaters were immediately on their feet, skating over to Nathan who felt like his heart was about to burst out of his chest and flutter away. Vincent was the very first one over. Nathan found himself engulfed in a tight hug that Vincent initiated, which the other skaters then piled around, forming a giant circle of warmth.

When they all pulled back, some sniffling, some giggling, but all with a wide smile, Vincent laid one last pat to Nathan’s shoulder. 

“I hope that’s not the piece you choreographed for us.”

All the skaters laughed, Mirai and Bradie consecutively landing punches to either of Vincent’s shoulders. Vincent groaned, rubbing the sore spots.

(But Vincent was a poet. Of course he had more to say.)

With a warm smile and a seriously sappy gesture, Vincent somehow always knew which words hit the hardest; which words inflicted the most emotion. He knew how to choose select syllables that invoked the most meaning and sounded so simple yet profound at the same time.

“Welcome back home, Nathan.”

Nathan moved to wrap him in a hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note how yuzuru's part ends with "holy shit, nathan wasn't moving" and nathan's part ends with "nathan moved to wrap him in a hug"
> 
> ugh wow bringing elleah into this was a really great decision
> 
> but she's still human and more of a reviser than an editor so if there's any mistakes let us know!
> 
> as always: like, comment, and subcribe (and don't forget to hit that bell) (wow i'm an idiot)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuzuru tried another quad salchow.
> 
> Underrotated, too far backward, a step on the landing.
> 
> But landed nonetheless. 
> 
> _Good. Again._
> 
> Another quad sal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> japanese translations at the end!
> 
> Also, I know that if Nathan didn’t win the 2018 Worlds because of his injury, then Max Aaron and Vincent Zhou wouldn’t have been able to secure three berths for the USA at the 2019 Worlds... but you know what? I don’t even care. It would be too much work to explain this stuff or add some backstory so it makes sense so I’ll just tell y’all right now. It _doesn’t_ make sense. But just know that the USA has three berths at 2019 Worlds for some strange reason. And that poor Tomoki isn't allowed to go... :(

‘**March 10, 2011**’. 

A dog-eared page in Yuzuru’s diary; the only page in the journal that received that honor. Not like he needed to dog-ear the edge. The rest of the journal, the last third or so of the book, was completely empty. The pages left so unused that they still stuck together in chunks, their perfectly machine-cut edges clinging to one another, eternally petrified in their state of horror.

Yuzuru’s handwriting—as personable and spread-out as his energy, but kanji and hiragana still perfectly legible and technical like his jumps—stood off the page in bold black lettering. The single page was read so often that the bound pages of the journal could now lay flat when placed on a table. Some of the characters had faded, after years of Yuzuru reading his own words and running his fingers over the words that proclaimed his dreams, picking up a little of the ink each time he renewed his passion.

‘**I think my passion for skating has grown tremendously**,’ he writes, characters written as sure as Yuzuru might’ve been that day. ‘**I am happy to say I’ve been improving every day—even my coach says so. She says I am like the river, always growing and changing with each season**.’

Then, a few lines later, ‘**It is March and the rivers are swollen with snowmelt again. I took another walk along Nanakita River after practice, just because I can, and their churning currents have drawn me in somehow. The relaxing rush of the water is much like ocean waves, steady and mellow. Except instead of waves bringing you to the shore, the river takes you to the sea. Its waves are not constant like the ocean, but fleeting. One sweep of the water, then the next. Never the same water, always different. Until the river swells meet the ocean waves and they collide.**’

A line break. A tiny doodle of cartoon ocean waves, drawn with a fading blue highlighter—as well as a stick figure surfer on the biggest wave.

‘**Why does the ocean never flow into the river? Why does the river never flow into the ocean? Their waves, so different, seem to meet with equal force; two unstoppable currents battling until they are forced to stop. I predicted an epic battle, opposite waves crashing so fiercely that the thunder could have been made jealous.**’

Another line break, no doodle this time. The words got less and less neat as each line was filled, like Yuzuru gave up trying to make the page look nice and just let his personality run free on the page. But as his handwriting deteriorated, his eloquence did not.

‘**But as I traveled along the river and somehow made my way to the sea, I could not find the epic battle I wanted to witness. Instead, the waters met calmly, swirling and mixing peacefully like the embodiment of yin and yang. A quiet dip between two deadly areas of water. The calm between the storms.**’

The next paragraph begins with a semi-dried pen, as if he took a long time to think and came back, pen left uncapped the whole time, and started writing again. At sixteen, Yuzuru had a lot to say, but neither the vocabulary nor the maturity to bring it to life on the page. With childish naivete still pumping through his blood, he wrote articulately:

‘**I think I want to find my ocean. For a long while, I thought skating would be my one and only love, but now I see that’s impossible. I want to find someone who makes the world peaceful, even if our separate lives are led chaotic and unruly. I want someone to match my stubbornness and strength perfectly like the ocean waves match the river. Someone to calm the disarray and confusion constantly bombarding my mind like bullets.**

‘**But for now, skating. Skating will be my life until I find my ocean. Skating will be my chaos until the waves come to bring me peace.**

‘**I wonder how much more chaotic my life can get.**

‘**Signed, Yuzuru.**’

Yuzuru didn’t expect the gods to answer him the next morning in the form of a giant shudder; in the form of the ground beneath his feet rocking violently during his afternoon skating session. For the first time in his life, the ice had been unkind and unforgiving. Yuzuru learned that day how to fear what he loved.

Yuzuru didn’t write in the journal ever again (although he did read it frequently).

He believed it was cursed, like ‘Death Note’ or some other stupid anime that Saya had watched after school each day when they were younger. Whatever was written in it had to come true, and Yuzuru didn’t want that kind of responsibility. He preferred to jump into the unknown. Take risks and deal with problems as they came. Let the river current pick him up and sweep him further towards the beckoning ocean.

Sixteen-year-old Yuzuru Hanyu knew exactly wanted from the world. And in return, the world knew exactly what to give him.

* * *

The scratch of skates against the ice. The thunk of a toe pick colliding with solid ground, then nothing, then the landing.

Off-balance and barely getting in three-and-a-half rotations into his quad sal, Yuzuru fell over, helpless to the effects of gravity on his weak body. His limbs wouldn’t respond properly; his legs didn’t get enough height into each jump and his arms wouldn’t snap into each rotation like they were supposed to. The lack of power and increased drag slowed down every single jump. But Yuzuru kept trying.

The exhaustion after each jump kept his mind off Nathan. The weightlessness gifted in each jump made the heavy feeling in his limbs go away. If it meant hitting the ice and being slammed back into reality each time he attempted a jump, it would be worth it for that half-second of reconciliation. The few moments of peace that could be granted from his stirring mind.

“You should take a break, Yuzu,” Brian gently prodded as Yuzuru skated past the boards. He was supposed to be working with Evgenia but it seemed Yuzuru’s many falls concerned even him, who knew to usually leave Yuzuru alone if he were ever in a fit. “You know ‘Origin’ and ‘Otoñal’ by heart. If you keep up this pace, you might have an asthma atta—”

“No,” Yuzuru cut him off sharply. Yuzuru rarely showed any disrespect towards his elders, especially those who had major authority over him, like his parents, coaches, or any ISU official. Even after training in Canada for so long, Japan’s strict age hierarchy had never wavered in Yuzuru’s moral standards. However, a different sort of beast seemed to take over Yuzuru that entire week. He skated away, huffing, “Not good enough. Keep on messing jumps.”

Whenever Yuzuru got frustrated or otherwise emotionally distraught, his English seemed to deteriorate. Today was no exception.

He didn’t miss the inhaler perched along the boards by Brian’s side that somehow materialized out of nowhere. He tried not to let himself think about the ragged pain building in his chest. If he didn’t let it affect him, it would surely go away. 

Yuzuru tried another quad salchow.

Underrotated, too far backward, a step on the landing.

But landed nonetheless. 

_ Good. Again. _

Another quad sal.

This time, a fall. Hard onto the ground. Enough that Yuzuru could already feel the bruise that was sure to show up on his hip later that day. He skidded across the ice a few feet before the momentum brought his body to a stop.

“Yuzu, you must rest little,” Evgenia begged, the concern generously painted across her brow as she skated over to give Yuzuru a hand up. Despite her session being the same length as Yuzuru’s, she seemed barely winded. “You cannot injure before Worlds.”

He denied her offered arm, pushing himself up off the ice and wiping away the sweat with his glove. A pang of jealousy shot through his heart, and he didn’t know what really caused it. Maybe it was how Evgenia could actually land her jumps without falling like an inexperienced child. 

“I’m fine, Zhenya,” he bit out, voice haggard on the delicate perch of his breath.

And Yuzuru skated off. As he passed his things sitting along the side of the rink, he ripped his gloves off and tossed them aside, his hands feeling clammy within their constraints. One tumbled off his bag and into some random crevice behind one of the benches, but Yuzuru couldn’t find it in him to care. He had twenty more pairs of the same, black, sponsor-provided gloves at home.

Looking back, Yuzuru wished he brought his headphones. He could hear the junior skaters talking about how his abilities slipped from him and how he must have been “feeling unwell… there’s no way _ Yuzuru Hanyu _ could be falling that much…”

Their chatter burned his eardrums, even though he tried not to process the words and let them affect him. Was this how Nathan felt on a daily basis? Why he shied away from doing jumps, in case anyone should see and be given reason to gossip?

A quad toe, underrotated, off-axis; a fall. Yuzuru pushed himself off the ice, taking long enough to feel the ice melt under his hands. Enough to turn the tips of his fingers pink and to make them burn with cold blood and irritated nerves.

His manager brought him another bento box for lunch, and Yuzuru elected to eat it inside, in the break room where all the senior skaters were sure to shy away from. Yuzuru couldn’t deal with their concerned gazes and questions when he felt dead-tired. They liked to eat outside or in the lobby, where the air was much fresher and the views more relaxing. 

He occupied a table all by himself, noticing but not really caring as the junior skaters gave him a wide berth.

Their loud squeals and giggles, once the source of his entertainment and joy when interacting with them were now the source of his annoyance. And with no headphones to block out the noise, he had no choice but to deal with their insufferable chatter for a little bit longer. Yuzuru only had a few more bites left in his bento box, anyways. 

His manager would be pleased that despite his recent insomniatic state, Yuzuru was still making an effort to eat and otherwise take care of himself. Even if the food tasted like bland mashed potatoes and plain rice. 

The food did seem to make Yuzuru’s headache go away, so he kept on shoveling food into his mouth.

“You did a double axel?! I’m so jealous of you…”

“My Bielmann is getting stronger.”

“Your Bielmann has always been strong, Lacie.”

“Hey guys, did you see Nathan Chen’s performance?”

“It was so cool! I didn’t know he had a short program.”

“Does it follow the rules?”

“Yes! Time limit, spins, required jumps… everything.”

“Did he do a quad?”

“Two of them! I thought he was retiring! Is he coming back to skating?”

“I don’t know.”

The rapid-fire conversation caught Yuzuru’s attention. He only managed to make out a few words due to the distance and just how fast the young girls were speaking but he did manage to get quite a lot.

Confusion spreading through his brain like a shock of ice, Yuzuru placed down his chopsticks and pulled out his phone from his pocket. Met with his home screen, he didn’t even know where to begin to search for… whatever he was searching for.

“Excuse me,” he gently called out, wanting to get the attention of the three little ladies at the table next to him. Immediately, their conversation ceased to a halt and they turned to him, eyes wide and just a tiny bit starstruck. “Where did Nathan perform his short program?”

“Stars on Ice: USA,” one girl, probably the one called ‘Lacie’ answered. “Last night in Fort Myers.”

“Thank you.”

He turned back to his phone, clicking on the YouTube app, where he was more likely to get results than his usual Japanese sites like _ Niconico Douga._

‘Nathan Chen Stars on Ice’ harbored results from 2018 and a few of the pieces Nathan choreographed for Stars on Ice Japan 2019. ‘Nathan Chen Stars on Ice 2019’ gave Yuzuru the video he wanted.

He clicked, waited for the advertisement to pass, and then waited for the music to start. A strong drum beat. Then the spotlight on Nathan—a simple white button-up (probably because he didn’t have any costumes yet for his programs)—into a fast-paced step sequence and a jazzy horn line.

And suddenly, all the noise in the room vanished. The once annoying chatter dulled out to a barely-there hum as Yuzuru was pulled into Nathan’s short program.

Electrifying and intense, this short program was the embodiment of Nathan in a two-minute program. And the first jump—a quad, instead of a toned-down triple for the exhibition crowd—exploded off the ice in height, power, and personality. The crowd absolutely loved it and, frankly, Yuzuru did too. He loved how Nathan showed off his abilities and wasn’t afraid to take risks with doing the hardest jumps.

Each jump and spin should have been impossible for an injured Nathan; but this wasn’t injured Nathan. Each jump landed with authority. Each spin and step sequence oozed charisma.

Like the Olympics never happened, this Nathan leaped across the ice like gravity were a mere inconvenience rather than a subjective force. This Nathan danced like he never knew pain. This Nathan smiled like he never felt heartbreak. This Nathan did triple axels across the ice like he was ready for the quad axel. This Nathan was _happy._

Fully healed and absolutely _glowing,_ Yuzuru saw the rebirth of the skater he once knew: the teen who would not shy away from the most difficult jumps or the most intense choreography. He could feel the passion rekindling itself in Nathan’s bones and with it, alighting a fire in Yuzuru’s own.

Nathan’s triumphant—no, _ blinding _—smile was visible throughout the entire program. It became much more evident, however, when the music ended and the crowd (which had been screaming pretty much the entire program) reached a fever pitch and offered a standing ovation as a stipend for Nathan’s flawless performance.

Yuzuru wanted to holler and clap, too. Wanted to jump up onto his feet and scream ‘_ yes! I knew you could do it!’ _ at the top of his lungs. But he was too entranced with the way Nathan seemed to vibrate with joy, radiating light and happiness and everything positive.

Yuzuru received a few texts from Jason just then. One happened to be a link to the same video Yuzuru was watching. The others were… interesting to say the least.

The first was a video of Nathan in-practice, with a text sent afterward ‘He had a short AND a free prepared lmao why am I not surprised, this is Nathan we’re talking about’. The video was taken from the Fort Myers arena, but sometime after the show—most of the lights and sound systems were in the process of being taken down.

_ Probably this morning,_ Yuzuru inwardly calculated. _ They wouldn’t have had the time yesterday._

The video contained snippets of Nathan’s same short program, “Caravan”, just without the fancy lights and all the people in the audience. The next was a song Yuzuru had only heard once. One random afternoon he pulled loose one of Nathan’s AirPods and chanced at whatever Nathan was listening to. Yuzuru recognized the song immediately. He never thought it would be a song Nathan would consider making a program out of.

One peculiar detail caught Yuzuru’s eye.

Off to the side, right where the judges would normally be seated during competition, a collection of about five people waited with clipboards. They were taking notes every time Nathan made a jump or a spin and suddenly Yuzuru realized.

_ His points are being tallied._

His claim was further solidified when he noticed one of the judges was wearing a ‘USFSIC’ or ‘US Figure Skating International’ jacket. 

_ He’s going into competition. Oh my— _

The final text was another link, this time to an article just published an hour or so beforehand.

‘QUAD KING RETURNS?’ greeted Yuzuru immediately, and he scrolled down to read through the rest of the article. Yuzuru knew exactly what he was looking for and he knew it might’ve been too good to be true. He still kept reading.

‘The Figure Skating community was in shock when Nathan Chen, the so-called “Quad King” received a serious injury at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. After the surgery, the entire world was heartbroken to learn than Chen’s injuries were career-ending. (Although some people may have been a little relieved.)’

(Yuzuru may or may not have snorted.)

‘Two weeks ago, an Instagram post revealed Chen and Shoma Uno performing a side-by-side triple axel and quadruple toe loop combination, a combination that only Shoma Uno has been able to complete in the past. Then, just last night, he performed twice for Stars on Ice: USA in Fort Myers, his first skating appearance in public since his injury, with multiple quads and a triple axel despite it only being an exhibition. The program seemed to fill all the ISU requirements for a short program. Fans and skaters alike were wondering if Chen was healed enough to return to competitions.’

A couple annoying ads popped up on the screen. Yuzuru grunted and swiped past them angrily.

‘This morning, at around eight o’clock, four qualified judges from the US Figure Skating International Committee—the team that decides which skaters to send to the Olympics and other International Competitions—assessed Chen’s short program, entitled “Caravan”, as well as his free program, entitled “Land of All”. They were asked to judge the performances as if it were a competition.

‘Fans wondered if they would be sending Chen to the upcoming World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama, Japan, and many are wondering if it is a smart move, given that Chen is fresh off an injury: one previously thought of as career-ending, and will also be competing with the world’s most decorated names in men’s figure skating.

‘Some of these names include Shoma Uno, silver medalist at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, two-time Japan National Champion, and the current Men’s World Champion; Vincent Zhou, two-time US National Champion and the current American favorite going into the World Championships; and finally, Yuzuru Hanyu, Chen’s former biggest rival and the one to beat this coming competition.’

Yuzuru winced as the article went on to list off all his awards and major titles. Why, on an article about Nathan, did Yuzuru’s medals have to be flaunted?

‘After assessing the scores and comparing them to the current top male skaters of America, the USFSIC has elected to remove Tomoki Hiwatashi from the current three-person lineup of Vincent Zhou, Jason Brown, and Hiwatashi, to send Chen to the upcoming World Championships, despite having never competed in a single competition this season…’

“_YES_!” 

This time, Yuzuru did jump to his feet and scream out loud, scaring the skates off the juniors. He waved apologetically and sat back down, although his mood didn’t deteriorate in the slightest. Inwardly, he rejoiced. Outwardly, he shoved his phone back into the pocket of his jacket and shoveled the last three bites of food down all in one go. He tossed the closed bento box into his lunchbox and left to find his manager again.

_ You’re back,_ Yuzuru’s soul sang, over and over again, the whole walk to the lobby. _ Nathan, you’ve come back._

Making his way back to the rink with a swing in his step, Yuzuru had no trouble lacing up his boots like he did that morning, his hands previously too shaky to get a good grip on his elusive laces. He stepped onto the ice and greeted it like normal, saying hello to an old friend and begging it to show mercy. There were only a few skaters left for the evening session, and most stuck to the sides of the rink like they were afraid of Yuzuru.

Which was kind of to be expected; evenings on a Friday were normally Jason’s private coaching times with Brian or Tracy. However, Yuzuru took advantage of the fact that there would be no other senior skaters on the ice and claimed Jason’s slot. None of those skaters were used to a two-time Olympic gold medalist prancing around the ice.

He skated both “Otoñal” and “Origin”. His first combination jump in “Otoñal” was a little too weak for his liking, and some of his step sequences felt heavy and sluggish. But it was a major improvement from that morning.

Brian looked pleased and just a little impressed. But Brian had always known to never be surprised when it came to Yuzuru. He just sent Yuzuru a content smile and drummed his hands against the boards a few times.

“You’ve pulled yourself together,” Brian commented right after Yuzuru practiced his quad toe-triple toe combination again, just to make sure it wasn’t feeling shaky. “Did something happen?”

A pleased smile lit up Brian’s face, and even though Yuzuru’s asthma inhaler still sat at his side, he seemed to give it no mind.

“Something great,” Yuzuru grinned, picking his phone up from the boards and unlocking it to show the article to Brian. He had a teasing little lilt to his voice, turning the words into a happy song. “Something very great.”

He handed his phone off to Brian and, just for the fun of it, decided to try that darn quad axel again.

It didn’t land, obviously, and he sprawled out after the horrible landing. But the disappointment and frustration that he usually felt after falling wasn’t there. It was instead replaced by pure and utter joy.

He started to laugh.

Right there in the middle of the ice. Spread out like a starfish. 

(The junior skaters were looking at him like he was crazy and, honestly, Yuzuru wondered himself. But none of that mattered.)

Because in that moment, Yuzuru rediscovered two miracles at once. He lost them in the same night and they came to him in a fever dream of bento boxes and jazzy latin music. The night Nathan said goodbye, Yuzuru’s skating skills deteriorated.

And Nathan was back. So was Yuzuru’s skating. Maybe Nathan wasn’t back with _Yuzuru,_ but the details didn’t matter much when Nathan smiled like the flowers bloomed year-round. Maybe Yuzuru should’ve been a little scared. After all, Nathan had once been his biggest threat. The name scribbled at the top of his ‘BEWARE’ list and circled with three different types of highlighters and one ominous red sharpie the very first year Nathan competed as an international senior. A name right up there with Shoma and Javier and 

But that was before Yuzuru knew the real Nathan. Before Yuzuru discovered that Nathan could calm the storm in his mind and bring him to a peaceful state. Before Yuzuru’s river met Nathan’s ocean.

_ Holy crap. _

_ I’ve found you. _

“Get off your ass, Yuzu!” Brian scolded from the sidelines, drumming his hands against the boards, rejuvenated in the same way Yuzuru was after reading the article. “Nathan’s back on his feet, which means you have to work harder to keep up with him, old man!”

Yuzuru laughed harder and pushed himself to his feet. “Am I old man? Or is that you?”

Brian’s angry fist shaking in the air reminded Yuzuru of the angry neighbor back home in Sendai who would yell at Saya and Yuzuru for trampling his irises and tulips. 

Making it home that evening, the euphoric feeling hadn’t yet worn off. Despite his better judgment, Yuzuru reached into his gym bag and pulled out his phone.

He dialed Nathan’s number. Sure, he had Nathan’s information saved away on a contact but Yuzuru always typed in the numbers he called most. His mom’s cell phone. Brian’s work phone. Saya’s landline. Nathan’s cell phone.

The last time he attempted calling—a week or so ago—didn’t go very well. It wasn’t like Nathan sent him straight to voicemail. The calls would ring and ring and give Yuzuru false hope that maybe it would go through; maybe this time Nathan would answer and Yuzuru could talk to him and apologize and say all the things he had been too afraid to say (not that he wasn’t still terrified to say it, but that’s not the point). 

Nathan never picked up the phone. 

(Yuzuru stopped trying after a while.) 

Nathan never blocked his number, either.

(It would hurt less if he did.)

The phone rang for a long time. Much longer than what Yuzuru thought normal. He was about to give up and just accept that Nathan would never want to talk to him again when suddenly the ringing stopped.

“Hello?” Nathan’s tentative voice answered the phone. “Who is this?”

Yuzuru’s heart sank. If Nathan was going to pretend like they didn’t know one another, then he was just going to hang up and save himself from the heartbreak—

“Hello? I’m sorry if this is someone I know… I broke my phone and all my data was erased. None of the contact numbers saved. I’m on a new phone right now. Hello?”

Yuzuru wanted to laugh.

_ Of course. Of course you would break your phone to the point of no repair. _

But at the same time he wondered if, knowing full well who was on the other end of the phone, Nathan would still have picked up the phone? Or would he let it ring? Was it even his fault if he couldn’t answer the phone?

“Nathan,” Yuzuru greeted, as evenly as he could muster.

A pause.

And another.

“Yuzuru,” Nathan answered, equally as careful.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

_ Awkward... _

“I saw your short program. Congrats on making it to the Worlds. I always knew you could do it.”

“Thanks, Yuzuru.” Yuzuru could hear the smile in Nathan’s voice. “Jason set everything up. He called the committee over and encouraged me to try.”

Another pause. But this time, it was less awkward. More comfortable. Two companions basking in the feeling of being in one another’s presence. Yuzuru could feel the warmth seeping into his body; the same feeling he got when he was with Nathan.

“I am excited to see your free skate. I’m sure it is spectacular.”

“I’m excited to finally compete with you again. Maybe I’ll beat you once more.”

Yuzuru grinned. “Yes, maybe you will. I am looking forward to the showdown.”

Nathan chuckled; a single puff of amusement that betrayed his eagerness through the phone. He sounded so carefree and lively; everything he was _ not _ after the Olympics. Yuzuru wished the conversation was in person so he could see Nathan for himself. Nathan’s genuine smile, his confident posture, the light and passion alight in his eyes. 

“Thank you, Yuzuru.”

_Shock._ _What?_

“For what?”

Yuzuru could practically see the shrug Nathan jerked his shoulder into. “For always believing in me. Even when I didn’t believe in myself.”

“Nathan…” Yuzuru began, but he didn’t know what else to say. But he was sure Nathan knew what Yuzuru wanted to express, but could never find the words. He always knew.

“I’ll see you at Worlds. It will be both of our first competitions in a while!” Nathan exclaimed, his voice pitching upwards and reminding Yuzuru just how young he really was. “Good luck, Yuzu.”

The line went dead.

Yuzuru smiled, genuine and gentle. His heart calmed considerably.

_ Good luck, Yuzu. _

Nathan used his nickname: a tiny little signal that they weren’t strangers, they were still friends. And while Yuzuru still had a boatload of things he wanted to say to Nathan, ‘I love you’ being one of them, for now, this would be enough. Until Worlds.

And it would be the return of two champions. What a competition. Yuzuru hasn’t competed since the Rostelecom last year, and Nathan since the Olympics. As a result of their injuries, neither Nathan or Yuzuru competed in their respective National Competitions. And yet, they were two of the favorites going into the competition.

Shoma, on one of his random calls to Yuzuru that seemed to be routine but always unexpected, said that he was honestly terrified of the upcoming competition. When Yuzuru inquired why, because ‘_ you’re the reigning World Champion, Shoma, you’re literally the best _ ’, Shoma just sighed and said at the last Worlds, he didn’t have _ Nathan Chen _ and _ Yuzuru Hanyu _ vying for the podium as well. While Mikhail had missed out on gold by a little over a point, it was nearly a given that Shoma would podium.

The fact that Shoma had such low self-esteem despite being one a legendary figure skater (seriously… first to land a quad flip!) saddened Yuzuru. He hated how his teammate always underestimated himself. And the fact that there was a lot of pressure on Shoma to win a consecutive title at a home game… Shoma had to be feeling worse about the situation.

Yuzuru sighed and collapsed on the couch.

With the adrenaline and fury from that night’s practice effectively worn off, Yuzuru was then acutely aware of the dried sweat sticking to his hairline and the aching pains in his legs. He wanted to take a long hot bath until his muscles turned limp like ramen noodles in boiling water. And then maybe sneak in an ice pack to his ankle right before bed.

But he had something else to do.

Yuzuru dialed another number he knew by heart. He waited patiently as the international call connected, knowing the other end would pick up as soon as she saw who the call was coming from.

The line clicked.

“Saya _ moushimasu_.”

“Saya-chan. _ Hanashi ga aru. _”

(First, he thanked her for her recent engagement to her long-time boyfriend.)

(Then he raised his voice.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Saya moushimasu - "this is Saya" (a greeting to answer the phone)
> 
> 2\. Hanashi ga aru - "we need to talk (now)"  
\- this one has a sense of urgency, like "I have to talk to you _at this very moment_


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “See what I mean, Nate? These people here will protect you against the riots.” Jason asked, his voice a normal conversational level. It seemed he didn’t care what the microphones heard or whoever was offended by his frank analysis of the situation. “We’re all on your side. You’ve got this.”
> 
> Nathan just nodded and let himself be led inside the arena for the media day.
> 
> He tried not to let the ‘Where is Tomoki??’ posters ruin his mood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm so late y'all... AP classes have been kicking my ass literally and figuratively. But there's just one more chappie left!!!
> 
> I'm working on a Haikyuu!! fic rn... idk if it will actually get published or just join the thousands of drafts I have in the corner and never get finished

> How do you spell love?
> 
> You don't spell it; you feel it.
> 
> \- Winnie the Pooh

* * *

“Nathan! What are your strategies coming into this competition without any possible hope of medaling?”

“How did the US Figure Skating Committee make the decision to send you over US Bronze medalist, Tomoki Hiwatashi?”

“What do you have to say about your previously career-ending injury?”

“Are you predicting another PyeongChang incident today?”

“Do you think you have a chance against the top figure skaters in the world?”

“If this competition fails, will you return to choreography?”

Instead of the media dying down after a week like they usually do, it seemed that after the announcement to send Nathan to Worlds, they just seemed to grow in size by the day. Not only that, but their questions bit harder each time; Nathan wondered if they really wanted an answer or a violent reaction to post online. He actually had to breathe to calm down his rising blood pressure a few times. 

“Are you okay?” Vincent leaned in to Nathan to mumble, mouth carefully molded in place so that the cameras couldn’t read his lips. “They’re getting a little harsh today.”

“Nothing I haven’t handled before,” Nathan sighed pitifully, pulling the strap of his backpack higher up on his shoulder in a fit of resignation. “I just hate feeling like a monkey. The cameras unnerve me.”

Vincent frowned, attention turning back to the crowd around him. Pushing his other earbud back into its place, he seemed to come to a decision and sped up his steps, crossing in a diagonal so he was directly in front of Nathan, blocking the majority of the cameras who were focused on them. A groan arose throughout the crowd of reporters once Nathan’s face was blocked, and most of the cameramen tried to swivel around to the side of the team of athletes.

Nathan’s face on the headlines was like liquid gold, and all the reporters were trying to get a little piece. The number of foreign news companies who flew reporters to Saitama just to get a short video or interview from Nathan astounded him.

When a reporter somehow managed to sneak a microphone past the tight line of security guards and into Nathan’s face, Vincent maneuvered himself again so that Nathan was protected from the brunt of the press.

“Vince, what—”

Then Mariah joined him, off to Nathan’s right-hand side, expertly keeping her face and body between Nathan’s and the cameras. Bradie seemed to notice and hastened her steps to ‘talk’ to Mariah, forming a two-person wide barrier. Ashley and Madison kept towards the back, eyeing any reporters who dared to step closer than the protective bubble Team USA and the event’s security guards formed around Nathan. Zachary and Timothy used their massive heights to their advantage, bodily blocking most of Nathan’s face through the gap between Vincent and Mariah.

Jason shifted his messenger bag to one side, slinging his free hand around Nathan’s shoulders and plastering himself to his right side, where most of the paparazzi were. The final barrier between Nathan and the media.

“See what I mean, Nate? These people here will protect you against the riots.” Jason asked, his voice a normal conversational level. It seemed he didn’t care what the microphones heard or whoever was offended by his frank analysis of the situation. “We’re all on your side. You’ve got this.”

Nathan just nodded and let himself be led inside the arena for the media day.

He tried not to let the ‘Where is Tomoki??’ posters ruin his mood.

The arena in Saitama offered at least 2 run-throughs of each program per skater, as well as a general day for all the skaters to meet on the ice and for the press to be able to get as many interviews done before the practices started. The first official day of arrival, the morning after all the skaters got to Japan, was the general “media day”, where all the skaters came in a group, donning their team jackets or even waving flags. Much like the opening ceremony for an Olympic Games. Official practices and today’s media day had a few people in the stands, and most had video cameras. Thankfully, none of them were from gossip magazines or US news channels.

Today, no one would be able to really run through their programs, but it was a really great opportunity for the skaters to familiarize themselves with the arena and say hello to other teams.

Jason started doing Tracy’s warm-up routine once on the ice and Nathan joined him, the exercises ingrained in his mind after spending quite a few weeks at TCC. They made laps around the rink, slowly warming up their muscles and battling the cold of the arena.

Sometime during their warm-ups, team Korea arrived to the practice and Junhwan and Eunsoo joined in. Eunsoo, Rafael’s student, didn’t really know the warm-ups by heart like all the TCC students did, but Nathan made sure to signal beforehand what would come next. 

“We should do synchronized skating instead,” Junhwan mumbled under his breath. 

Jason laughed. Nathan shook his head and followed Jason into the crossovers, making sure to keep enough distance between him and Eunsoo.

As they were doing ski glides across the ice, a few cheers and surprised gasps sounded throughout the arena. Nathan reflexively turned towards the entrance of the rink, where skaters had been occasionally filtering in to get familiar with the arena and the ice.

_ Oh. That’s why everyone’s freaking out _ .

It was kind of hard to miss Team Japan arriving, all in one large unit and wearing matching mostly-white crew neck sweaters. While Team USA tended to branch out to their coach-mates and friends during major competitions, Team Japan stuck together like a pack of wolves. And now that they were on home territory, today was no exception. They just seemed to band even closer, looking like an uber-deadly band of gang members (especially with Shoma’s perpetual bitch-face that showed up whenever he was sleepy).

Keiji, a skater who Nathan only briefly met but never had a proper conversation with, was the first to enter the ice. Then most of the ladies. Then the ice dancing duo.

Then Shoma stepped into the ice, right as Nathan and his large group of warm-uppers passed by. He looked as tired and out-of-it as always, and his hair desperately needed a good brushing; honestly, Nathan was surprised to see him conscious so early in the morning.

And then Nathan’s back was to the entrance. The cheers from the audience didn’t faze him. He didn’t need to look to know who entered the ice next. He didn’t need to watch as the skater dipped down to greet the ice before practice. He’s seen it in person a hundred times already, and dreamed it a thousand more.

He was surprised, however, when he felt a presence skate up beside him. He felt the heat of Yuzuru’s gaze before he heard the scratch of incoming blades against the ice and turned his head to greet the new skater.

“We’re almost done warming up here,” Nathan said to Yuzuru.

“That’s alright,” Yuzuru said in return, voice low and barely carried over the sound of skating. “I warmed up off-ice.”

Nathan didn’t know what to make of Yuzuru’s half-distant answer. He simply nodded and made a little more space for Yuzuru in their congregated group of Brian and Raf’s students. Jason finally initiated a few three-turns and bracket-turns—always Tracy’s last warm-up before practice began—and all the skaters followed suit.

After the warm-up the skaters dispersed, leaving Nathan and Yuzuru alone in the center of the ice. “Are you on painkillers today?”

Yuzuru shook his head. “Not today. For the practice, maybe. For the competition? Definitely.”

Chuckling, Nathan shook out his ankles. Even in a strange state of libido during their relationship, talking about nonsense with Yuzuru still came easily. “I brought a whole bottle of Advil just in case my knee starts acting up. I should be fine, though. I’m excited to be here.”

Yuzuru nodded. “You look happy to be here.”

Nathan kicked out his boot, his toe making contact with the heel of Yuzuru’s skate. A familiar gesture; the same one Nathan would use whenever he wanted to correct Yuzuru’s stance. “It’s much more fun than choreographing.”

“Then go have fun. You probably don’t have a lot of interviews today, right?

“No. I’m going to start warming up jumps.”

“Give the fan-cameras something to video, then.”

Yuzuru and Nathan broke apart at the same time.

A single toe loop.

Somewhere on the opposite side of the rink, Nathan heard the familiar thunk of a toe pick against the ice, then the collective gasp that rang through the audience. Someone probably landed a triple or quad.

_ Alright, then. _

Nathan tested his edges a little bit, shifting from inside to outside. 

A quad toe.

The withheld cheers from the audience, as well as the sound of camera shutters flapping like bird wings.

(Nathan had to remind himself to not smirk; people were videoing.)

Most of the skaters disappeared sometime into media day. They were all dispersed throughout the various rooms where international news and sports channels would interview the athletes. 

Nathan, having been added so late to the roster, only had a quick interview with all of Team USA, and then had the ice mostly to himself. None of the news outlets had thought to contact Yuki, or even Nathan himself, in order to schedule an interview, and their rosters were mostly full of other skaters anyways.

Nathan just greeted the skaters as they came and left, taking the downtime between their interviews to skate for a few minutes before being ushered into the next. Some of the other skaters who knew one another formed their own groups in the center of the ice, talking and goofing off with jumps or lifts. Nathan didn’t join them, preferring to stick to his own world.

“You look happy to be here,” a voice cut Nathan out of his thoughts.

“Shoma!” Nathan greeted, accepting the handshake and letting Shoma bow just for the cameras’ sake. He dipped his head just to be courteous. “You’re finally awake.”

“Today is very early. I need more sleep,” were the few words Shoma offered as explanation, hair still tousled in that signature sleepy-style of his. “You got into competition!”

“I did—I was surprised to get in, but I somehow did it. Looks like you’ll be fighting me to the top of the podium. Scared?” Nathan teased.

“Yes. Very scared,” Shoma answered, all trace of humor gone from his eyes.

Nathan frowned. “What? Why?”

“Because you very good. And you have had rest. I have not,” Shoma said, vaguely gesturing to his bad ankle. Even though he looked wide awake now, a heavy exhaustion seemed to weigh down his shoulders and his dropped his head a little so his bangs covered his eyes. “You and Vincent and Jason jump no problem. No hurt.”

“Not true,” Nathan argued. “My knee still gives me problems. And I just came out of retirement last week. I’m pretty sure everyone here has a good chance against me.”

Shoma scoffed, knocking Nathan’s side with his elbow. “You retired, but you not stop skating. You left for a whole year, and now are stronger than before. Is very scary.”

“So… I’m like a zombie? Risen from the dead?”

“ _ Hai _ ,” Shoma nodded, a single jerk of his head. “Impossible to kill.”

“You’re the reigning World Champion, though. If anything, you’re the one that’s going to be impossible to kill.”

Shoma scoffed and shook out his right ankle, grimacing at the discomfort that shot up his leg. “Not today, Nathan-kun.”

Before Nathan could ask what he meant, Shoma’s coach beckoned from the boards and then Shoma was being ushered into another interview, skate guards slipped hastily over his blades. As the three-time reigning Japanese National Champion, as well as the reigning World Champion in a competition taking place on  _ home turf _ , Shoma obviously had a lot of interviews. Even more so than Yuzuru, surprisingly.

Nathan kind of felt bad for Shoma. He was more laid-back than Yuzuru; preferring to stay out of the public’s eye while Yuzuru didn’t really mind it. But Shoma had to deal with winning competitions and the whole media package that came along with it. Nathan once asked him if he regretted throwing himself so eagerly into the public’s eye like Nathan did before the Olympics. He asked Shoma if he ever felt like caving into the pressure like Nathan did at the Olympics. Then, he asked Shoma if he ever wanted to retire like Nathan did after the Olympics.

(Shoma said yes to all of the above with a wry smile on his face, and said that Nathan was his biggest role model.)

“Nathan!”

He recognized that voice. 

“Mariah! Finally done with interviews for today?”

“I think so,” she shrugged, zipping up her jacket and adjusting her gloves. “The others are finishing soon but Vincent has a couple more. I don’t think he’s going to be able to get back on the ice today,” she explained mournfully.

Nathan sighed, using a hand to brush back his curls with a distasteful grimace on his face. He distinctly remembered the exhaustion that hung off Shoma, and the frustrated look in his eyes from being called off the ice to another interview or sponsorship meeting. “That’s the life of a National Champion,” he said, keeping his words vague to specifically allude to both Shoma and Vincent, “you become the media’s puppet.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“I’m a two-time US National Champ, Mari.”

“Sorry,” she rolled her eyes, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I forgot and all.”

Nathan laughed, swiping at her jacket even as she ducked out of his grip easily. “I don’t know how you’d forget, seeing as it’s hanging up on Raf’s wall in his office.”

“I just ignore it every time I walk by.”

“You’re annoying _ — _ ”

“Nathan-san.”

Nathan froze in his place although he didn’t really know why.  _ Yuzuru and you are cool _ , he reminded himself.  _ No hard feelings. _

Willing his tense muscles to loosen up, Nathan turned towards the source of the voice and smiled cordially. Not too wide, otherwise it might look too flirty. Not too small because then it would seem too reserved and pulled-back. Despite being away from the prying cameras for almost a year, Nathan still knew the intricacies of playing to the camera. The hundreds of fancams undoubtedly directed on Yuzuru would now be focused on  _ him _ , too.

“Yuzuru. Are your interviews over—”

“ _ O-hanashi ga aru no desu ga? _ ”

Nathan understood, thanks to Yuzuru’s chance Japanese lessons. He glanced over to Mariah, who sent him a concerned look and seemed like she was trying to read Nathan’s mind to figure out what was going on between him and Yuzuru. And if she needed to possibly step in and ask Yuzuru to back off.

“Mariah,” he began slowly, carefully keeping his face void of any telling emotion. “I’ll see you in a little bit.”

“Wait, Nathan—”

Nathan sharply shook his head, silencing any of her questions. “This is important. If the others ask where I am then say I’m busy.”

And he followed Yuzuru off the rink, a respectable distance away so the cameras and filmers wouldn’t have anything to gossip about.

His skate guards felt a little slippery on the arena’s dry land, and he was wondering just where he and Yuzuru could talk without someone listening in on their every word. After all, Yuzuru probably had about three different camera crews following him around since the competition took place in his country.

Yuzuru led him down one final turn and then opened an unmarked door, which revealed an empty but spacious room with a single table and a couch. A TV also hung up on one of the walls. A standard dressing room, a bit barren compared to what Nathan was used to.

Nathan entered when Yuzuru beckoned him to, keeping his back turned to the door. The door clicked shut. The lock did, too.

“Don’t you have interviews?” Nathan asked as soon as he was sure no one could barge in on their conversation.

“Not anymore. Most of my interviews are after each program. Especially free program.”

“Alright. What is this room, then?”

Yuzuru chuckled and stepped past Nathan to sit on the couch. “Pooh-san’s room. After all the toys are collected off the ice, the sweepers take them here to this room. Because there is no space anywhere else.”

Nathan scoffed and shook his head, humor playing at the edge of his lips. “Only you.”

“Only me,” Yuzuru parroted, a wistful expression on his face. He patted the space on the couch next to him. “Sit down, Nathan. I think we have a lot to talk about.”

Nathan obeyed, throwing all formalities aside on a caprice. He sat down, leaving about an inch of space between his thigh and Yuzuru’s. He leaned back against the plush pillows and turned his head in Yuzuru’s direction. “What? Are we present to discuss the intricacies of our relationship?”

The advanced vocabulary made Yuzuru’s head spin for a minute, but the teasing grin pulling on Nathan’s lips grounded him.

“Well, we should start by acting normal in front of the other skaters,” Yuzuru listed off, his gaze growing distant and focused on the way Nathan’s lips stretched into a smile. “There are a lot of people watching us here and not a lot of people know about us. Less know about our…”

“Our fight,” Nathan finished, if it could even be called a fight. “I thought that was a given.”

“Haven’t we been doing it all the time since you started coming to TCC more?”

“I tried to,” Nathan corrected. “You didn’t give a damn.”

Yuzuru protested, throwing his head back. “ _ Eysh… _ ”

“It’s true! You didn’t try to hide anything,” Nathan snickered, recalling all the times Yuzuru wasn’t subtle when the situation called for it. “Even Saya noticed something was up, and she never saw us together.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Whoa, wait—”

“I’m sorry my sister said those things to you,” Yuzuru continued. “I’m sorry I could not see how much it hurt you sooner. I’m sorry that you felt worthless next to me and I’m sorry that I could not do anything to make you see how amazing you are.”

Nathan’s mouth gaped, the unexpected confession short-circuiting his mind.

“But most of all,” Yuzuru added when Nathan did not respond, determination set in his eyes. “I’m sorry I was not there when you finally realized it yourself.”

“You don’t have to apologize for that.”

Yuzuru smiled. A small, forlorn smile that betrayed just how affected he was by the situation. “I do. You were hurting and I was too selfish to realize it. And when you finally got back up, I was not there by your side.”

“I was being selfish, too,” Nathan argued, hurried in a way to make sure Yuzuru didn’t feel entirely at fault. “I didn’t want to skate because I was scared, not because I thought I couldn’t. Somewhere deep inside, I knew I could come back to competitions but I was so afraid of getting injured. I was terrified of what the world would say about me.”

“Like at the Olympics?”

“Like before the Olympics,” Nathan corrected with celerity, a quick and sudden need to make sure Yuzuru understood. “There was so much pressure on me to beat you and I was so nervous that all my technique went out the window. I lost everything because of it. I didn’t want that to happen again.”

Yuzuru slowly reached up a hand to run his fingers through Nathan’s hair, his eyes following the path of his hand with wonder alight in his pupils. The way he used to. Nathan’s breath caught in his throat when Yuzuru’s hands traced down to his cheek and then his jaw.

“You didn’t lose everything. You had me,” Yuzuru declared, voice gentle but gaze held fervently.

“I was afraid of losing you, too,” he admitted, red burning his cheeks at the confession. He wanted to hide under his curls. “I had already lost my skating, my Olympic dream, all the promotional deals, my respect and dignity in the figure skating community. I didn’t want to lose the one thing I had left. The one thing that I felt made me special.”

Yuzuru dropped his hand to Nathan’s shoulder, shaking the younger skater to reaffirm his words. “I do not define your worth, Nathan. I am not what makes you special.”

“Maybe,” Nathan shrugged, sweeping Yuzuru’s hand off his shoulder and taking it into his own. “But I have to admit, you are pretty special.”

Yuzuru could only laugh. He brought their joined hands up to his lips, pressing feather-light kisses to Nathan’s knuckles, hoping the touches could convey all his emotions that he didn’t know how to express in English, Japanese, or any other odd language that existed in the universe. “You’re special, too.”

“I’m sorry, too, then,” Nathan said, a hint of finality in his tone.

“What? You have nothing to apologize for—”

“No, I do,” Nathan cut him off, playing with Yuzuru’s fingers as he spoke, Yuzuru's lips brushing gently against his knuckles. “I don’t know exactly what I said the night we fought—it’s mostly a blur and I think I blocked it out—but I know I said some hurtful things. And made some horrible accusations. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what happened between us, Nathan. But I want to fix it.”

“Yuzuru—”

“You once said that you didn’t know what a person like me could find in you,” Yuzuru mumbled against his hands, eyes full of earnest affection. “I see the world in your eyes, Nathan. I look at you and I feel happy. When I’m with you, the universe calms down to a whisper and I only see you. And I don’t know what you felt months ago when you first confessed to me, but I think I feel the same way.”

“Yuzuru—” Nathan cut himself off, voice choking up. “W-when did you get so good at English? You’re going to make me cry.”

He chuckled, running his hands up Nathan’s arms so he could pull him into a tight embrace, placing all his conviction into the way he held his body. “I have had a lot of time to think this week. And time to write a speech.”

“You’re a dork.”

“What does that mean?”

Nathan didn’t respond. Instead, his own arms snaked around Yuzuru’s waist to pull their torsos flush together. Maybe their legs were displaced in awkward positions, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the fact that the hug felt warm and right.

“What does this mean for us?” Nathan asked, voice sounding small and scared. Like he were afraid the wrong question would make Yuzuru leave him again.

“I don’t know,” Yuzuru confessed truthfully. He pulled away from the hug, taking Nathan’s chin firmly in his fingers. “But I don’t care. I don’t care what everyone has to say because I have you.”

“What do you mean you have me?”

“Nathan, you—” Yuzuru stopped himself in his tracks. He shook his head in an attempt to reorganize his thoughts, which felt scattered and blurred from the feeling of having Nathan so close for the first time in forever. “I love you. And I think I will love you for a long time.”

“Oh— Well, I—” Nathan stuttered, face molded into one of poorly-concealed shock. He began to pull away, curling into himself from the sudden revelation. “I didn’t expect—”

“And you told me you loved me too, back in September. Do you still feel that way?”

Nathan quieted down. Instead of answering, he uncurled his limbs from around his body, spine straightening. Even though they were both sitting down on the couch and the difference between their heights wasn’t too astounding, Yuzuru still had the advantage, chin turned downwards to meet Nathan’s gaze.

Instead of answering, Nathan pushed himself onto his knees and pressed a fervent kiss to Yuzuru’s lips.

(That was totally a yes.)

* * *

“You spoke this week about how much you admire Nathan. How does this rivalry make both of you better, especially now that you’re both returning to competitions for the first time in a while?”

“You know… When I was in rehabilitation for my ankle, he was choreographing. And seeing him skate was making me— was giving me so much pressure to keep working. It also makes me happy because I’m really… I’m a competitor. I’m really happy to be competing against someone who has the same experiences I have.”

Not his best interview, but good enough. For some reason, as soon as a camera was shoved in his face, Yuzuru’s grammar and English vocabulary went out the window, even though he sounded near-fluent talking to Brian or Shae-Lynn or any of his English-speaking friends. Not to mention all the painkillers screwing with his comprehension and senses.

_ “Uno-san’s score is…” _ An announcement in Japanese stole his attention away from the interview for a second, _ “91.40 points in the short program.” _

Yuzuru’s entire body reacted. He shot out of the seat, making a mental note to apologize to the interviewer for cutting their time short. He needed to see the score on the screen himself, to make sure he wasn’t having another lapse because of the painkillers. He needed to judge Shoma’s reaction to see if it had truly been deserved or if the judges had somehow made a tallying error.

_ “Ninety-one?” _ He asked, stepping around the interviewer to check for himself in one of the monitors.  _ “Was something underrotated?” _

_ “He fell on the flip,” _ one of the cameramen explained.

_ “No, even if he fell on the flip, his points wouldn’t have been pulled so low, right?” _ He watched Shoma’s reactions from the kiss-and-cry and wondered how he could be so good at disguising his disappointment with his score. Yuzuru knew Shoma well; he was an actor above all things, but Yuzuru could see the frustration that churned in his blood. The disappointment in himself for failing. Ever since Yuzuru’s body began to give up on him, Shoma took over for Yuzuru and felt like he had a duty. A duty to Japan to do his best and win, especially since this years’ Worlds took place in Japan.

Shoma took the pressure like a true champion… at least until tonight.

_ “The toe… was it the toe loop?” _ Yuzuru knew it was pointless to ask, but he couldn’t help but search for the answer. He regretted not watching the free program himself, just so the curiosity pooling like a boil of lava in his gut would stop.

Yuzuru wondered if this was another case like Nathan’s. Too much pressure, media attention—not to mention an injury and the intense scrutinization present at a home competition. Things were just stacked up against Shoma.

A lot of the skaters seemed to be messing up their short programs: Junhwan and Keiji hadn’t performed the way Yuzuru knew them capable, Boyang seemed disappointed by his mistakes, Yuzuru couldn’t pull off a perfect skate either, and now Shoma.

Shoma, the 2018 World Champion and two-time Japan National Champion. Shoma, the perfectionist. Shoma, the one who was supposed to be Yuzuru’s backup plan: the assurance that Japan would get a podium finish in case Yuzuru couldn’t deliver after his long hiatus.

(But  _ ninety-one? _ That’s probably the lowest short program score Shoma’s gotten in  _ years.) _

“ _ For real?! _ ”

He wondered what curse seemed to be hexing the skaters that day. All the best ones, too. Ones that had been on Yuzuru’s ‘danger’ list for competitions since they were juniors. Then he wondered if Nathan would be affected by it.

_ “Please…” _ he began, biting around the skin of his nails, speaking to no one in particular.  _ “...give me a moment.” _

_ It looks like Japan may not be getting a gold today, _ he thought mournfully to himself.

Yuzuru turned to the woman interviewing him and bowed, apologizing with rushed and strung-together English. He quietly asked the cameramen from the program to stop following him until the end of the competition that day and slipped past the congregated staff members to find some privacy.

He walked to Pooh-san’s dressing room, the many ‘siblings and cousins’, of pooh already delivered to the room and piled against one of the walls. He turned on the TV manually when he couldn’t find the remote and collapsed against the couch. Nathan was very last for the short program, and there were still a few skaters left to go until it was his turn. 

Jason surpassed his short program score, knocking Yuzuru down to second but the other skaters didn’t seem to do that well, either.

And then the time came. Nathan’s simple costume—one of his old and unused Vera Wang costumes from the previous season—stood out against the white ice and the advertisements lining the boards.

Seeing Nathan skate again, in an international competition, was one of the best things to happen to Yuzuru. He was pleased to find that the Japanese audience, comprised mostly of his fans, were still cheering and clapping to Nathan’s song. At the end of the skate, the fans held up American flags and threw down flowers. 

A perfect skate. Clean, no falls. That seemed to be the running trend for all the American skaters so far. Vincent, although he probably wouldn’t be holding onto third for very long, managed a clean free skate. Jason’s score surpassed Yuzuru’s by two whole points.

And Nathan’s… the technical score alone exceeded Jason’s by over ten points. 

And then his scores were revealed.

(Yuzuru had to check his eyesight.)

107.40.

Not only did Nathan manage to surpass 100 points in the short program, but he was also the only one to do so that day. And coming out of retirement.

Yuzuru pushed himself up off the couch.

_ Knocked back to third… _ he mentally lamented, glancing at the mountain of pooh plushies that he totally didn't feel like he deserved.  _ I’ll have to try harder for the free _ .

He escaped the dressing room to prepare for the upcoming press conference, his mind a confused and muddled mess of emotions. He didn’t know whether to feel disappointed about his own score, or to be excited about Nathan’s.

He resigned to doing his best for the free skate. He had a lot of points to make up, and two whole places to climb. But the day  _ Hanyu Yuzuru _ gave up was the day he died. Japan would be getting a medal if Yuzuru had to chop his ankle off.

_ Sorry Nathan, _ he said internally.  _ If I win the free it’s nothing against you. _

(Healthy competition never hurt anyone.)

* * *

A score of 206.10.

_ Pretty good, _ Yuzuru thought to himself.  _ A new record and all. Brian and Ghislain seem to be pleased as well. _

And a combined score of 300.97.

“It’s been a while since we’ve seen that!” someone remarked, and Yuzuru had to agree. He forgot what it was like to do well in a competition. He might actually have a fighting chance at winning for once.

If Nathan scored lower than 160 points— _ as if, _ the voice in Yuzuru’s mind snickered, _ it’s physically impossible for Nathan to get that type of score, injury be damned _ —Yuzuru would win gold and Shoma (if Jason skated anything less than a world record free) would also make the podium in bronze. 

(Bronze, of course, as Vincent seemed to give the best free skate of his goddamned life somehow and beat out Shoma’s score by eleven points.)

As unlikely as it was that two Japanese figure skaters would be on the podium that year, Yuzuru could still dream. If Nathan’s perfect streak from his short program carried over, he would win by a landslide.

Brian raced out of the kiss and cry to give Jason a pep talk, who would be skating right after Nathan. Yuzuru stayed a few more moments at the bench, collecting the stamina to get up after an exhaustive free skate.

“Representing the United States of America: Nathan Chen!”

Surprisingly, there were many American flags in the audience—of course, not nearly as many as the Japanese flags—but enough to wonder if most people in the audience were carrying multiple flags. 

(They were.)

And when Nathan broke Yuzuru’s free program record by ten whole points, a little flurry of disappointment broke through Yuzuru’s thickly-cemented wall of banned emotions. And when Nathan’s total score was revealed, beating Yuzuru’s by twenty whole points, Yuzuru couldn’t feel anything but stunned. Even his loopy and hallucinogenic pain medications seemed to stop working and leave Yuzuru’s brain silenced.

And Yuzuru was knocked down to second. Only a few times has Yuzuru ever been off the top of the podium, and especially not by such a large margin. If he lost, it was usually by a few points or a  _ fraction _ of a point. Not  _ twenty _ .

(He needed to buy Nathan a muffin basket or something.) 

_ Well played _ .

The media was sure to go insane after this. Yuzuru could only imagine the headlines: ‘Nathan Chen wins 2019 World Championships after devastating injury at 2018 Olympics’, ‘Nathan Chen wins landslide victory despite previous career-ending injury’, ‘Nathan Chen: Quad King Returns’.

He couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud.

Disappointed in himself for not doing as well as he wanted, sure. Sad that he let down his country on home turf, very much so. Dismayed that he couldn’t have a great four-month comeback, of course.

But proud for Nathan. 

Proud that despite everyone telling him he couldn’t, Nathan rose to the challenge and won a World Title. So very proud that Nathan, in spite of everything the world had to throw at him, stood back up and defeated the other skaters so thoroughly that his title couldn’t be denied.

_ Twenty points _ . Yuzuru had to remind himself of that fact over and over again.  _ At a World Championships game _ . Where everyone is literally the  _ best in the World _ .

“Look at us being black-blade  _ twinsies _ ,” Nathan kicked his boot against Yuzuru’s once more, pulling him out of his thought-induced coma. Vincent snorted and had to cover his mouth at the ridiculous tone Nathan pitched his voice into, as well as the tiny little lisp he added to the last word.

“ _ Twinsies _ ?” Yuzuru asked, the world unfamiliar on his tongue, mimicking Nathan’s lisp.

“Twins.”

“ _ Ah _ .”

“Look at you, Nathan, teaching Yuzuru American memes. I’m very proud,” there was a mischievous look in Vincent’s eye.

“Shut it, Zhou, before I cut you  _ into a twin _ with my blades.”

“Very scary, my dude.”

Yuzuru was going to ask what the need to convert ‘twins’ to  _ ‘twinsies’ _ was when the medal ceremony music kicked in. Yuzuru returned his posture to its fullest height, camera-ready and the perfect image of Japan’s champion.

“Does he know about us?” he leaned over to whisper into Nathan’s ear. He knew Vincent and Nathan were very close, and have been since their Junior years, but he didn’t know if Vincent was one of  _ those _ friends; like Javier, Shoma, Romain, Mariah. The ones who they told  _ everything _ to.

Nathan nodded with a sheepish grin. “He figured it out on his own a few days ago after one of the practices. He’s more perceptive than most people think.”

Vincent skated to the center of the rink when his name was called and honestly, Yuzuru was kind of jealous. He seemed so happy, so content with his third placement. He did have reason to be; he fought tooth and nail to get into third place and so making the podium for the first time in his senior career must’ve been a pleasant surprise.

He stepped onto the podium with a little hop in his gait, smile as bright as the resurfaced ice. 

“I was a little overscored, I think,” Nathan mumbled under his breath, watching Vincent got settled on the podium. 

“Maybe a little,” Yuzuru said truthfully, pulling off his skate guards. He set them down on the floor and playfully landed a punch to Nathan’s shoulder. “But you still would have won either way.”

Yuzuru stepped into the ice and thanked the audience. He greeted Vincent and hopped onto the second place podium.

Nathan’s name was then called and the smile on his face was so vibrant, even from a distance, that Yuzuru couldn’t help but smile himself. Nathan stepped gingerly onto the red carpet, denying Vincent’s handshake for a warm hug, then coming to Yuzuru to do the same.

Yuzuru bent down at the waist to accept Nathan’s hug, mumbling “twinsies” over his breath. Nathan’s smile became blinding when he pulled away, withholding his laughter as best he could.

Nathan stepped onto the podium with a wide-eyed look, awaiting the next part of the ceremony. The medals went on one-by-one, and the ISU President said something to Nathan while shaking his hand that made Nathan’s smile grow even larger.

(Yuzuru wondered just how much happier Nathan could get because holy shit Nathan was  _ glowing. _ )

The bouquets, lots of hand-shaking, National Anthem,  _ yada yada yada _ .

Pictures. 

Yuzuru had to smile again.

He was kind of sad that Shoma wasn’t on the podium so they could do ‘wedding ceremony’ again, as is tradition. But maybe he could coax Nathan into doing it somehow. He wondered if Nathan knew about the tradition. Did those sorts of things make it into American figure-skating gossip? Or was that just the Japanese media being weird again?

More pictures with the chairmen of the ISU. Then all three medalists stepped onto the top platform and Nathan wrapped his arms around Vincent and Yuzuru. A bunch of boring stuff that usually Yuzuru revelled in, being the center of attention (literally and figuratively) at the top of the podium. But this time, he felt a bit more mellowed out. The smile on his face didn’t lose vibrance.

After the pictures, Yuzuru stepped back down onto his podium, fixing the ribbon of the medal so it sat flat around his neck.

“Holy crap,” Nathan said under his breath, looking down at his gold medal. Yuzuru turned back when he heard Nathan’s puzzled tone. “I did it.”

Yuzuru laughed and winked at Nathan when the younger skater turned towards him. “I told you you could do it.”

Nathan stepped closer to Yuzuru, right near the edge of his first-place podium. With the added height, he stood a few inches taller than Yuzuru and seemed to be a little smug about his height advantage.

“I’m taller for once. I kind of missed being above you on a podium.”

Yuzuru snorted. He was almost directly eye-level with Nathan’s gold medal laying on his chest. “Don’t look so happy about it.”

“Why can’t I be?” Nathan pouted, shaking his fists petulantly like a child would. However, a distinct hint of amusement and the golden shimmer of love still hung in the depths of his eyes. “I won, after all. I think the last time I beat you was at Four Continents a few years back.”

Yuzuru hummed thoughtfully. “I think I won too.”

“What do you mean?”

Yuzuru simply smiled and wrapped one of his hands around the medal around Nathan’s neck. On any other occasion, he probably would never even dreamed of doing this. But the combination of being proud of Nathan, pain medication, and quite possibly the most euphoric feeling of  _ love _ , Yuzuru let his urges follow through.

With a firm but gentle pressure, he pulled Nathan down a few inches so they were level with one another. Then, taking as many liberties as he wanted to, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Nathan’s, a sweet and passionate kiss meant to give rather than to take. He could smell the lip balm that Nathan always wore, even if he could not taste it, and pulled away to press a series of light kisses to Nathan’s lips, chaste and sugary and very much overindulgent.

Yuzuru pulled back completely when he could not contain his smile, feeling Nathan’s lips turning upwards as well. 

“I won the day I found you. And I keep winning every day by your side. I love you.”

Nathan sobbed—happy tears, of course—and he pulled Yuzuru into another passionate kiss, dropping his bouquet somewhere to feel Yuzuru’s body under his fingers. “Holy fuck, I love you too.”

(Very eloquent, Nathan.)

(But accurate.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. O-hanashi ga aru no desu ga? - "I would like to speak to you/May I speak with you?"  
\- or something around that translation. I can't remember oof


End file.
